


Cantāte, Arcades

by Anonymous



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Alternate Universe - Politics, Canon Compliant, Gen, Post-Canon, The Enclave - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 03:35:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 61,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29628501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Arcade Gannon, age 35, lives a very safe, secluded, and structured life. He salutes to the American flag every morning, muddles through a training sim every afternoon, and sings the National Anthem every fourth of July.However, forces conspire to oust him from his cozy little home, threatening the safety of all those who live in his bunker. He journeys into the dangerous, irradiated wasteland to ask for the help of the mysterious Courier that recently stole Hoover Dam from both the Legion and the NCR.There's just one itty-bitty hitch in this plan.Arcade Gannon represents a sect of the Enclave...and folks ain't too friendly toward them 'round these parts.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fic about politics and the Enclave, which, while heavily fictionalized, may hit too close to home for some viewers, so please exercise caution if you're made uncomfortable by in-depth discussions of political theory, since that's basically the entire fic.
> 
> Furthermore, in this AU, Arcade Gannon was born and raised in an Enclave sect. I imagine that his canon incarnation is screaming in anguish every time Enclave!Arcade opens his mouth, so please use that as a barometer for the kind of insane, shithead things he's about to say. This fic is probably not for you if this premise makes you uncomfortable, so there's your fair warning.
> 
> All that said, if you're still here, knowledge of Fallout 2 canon is not required, but is recommended. Many characters and events, especially the characterization of the Enclave, are referenced from there. I intend to stay close to the canon of 1, 2, and New Vegas, while picking and choosing only what I want from 3+ and the DLC.
> 
> Honest Hearts and Dead Money were completed pre-game, Old World Blues happened indeterminately in the middle, and Lonesome Road...kind of doesn't really exist (sorry Ulysses). However, the Courier has 10 LK and 4 IN, so he never put two and two together with regards to Veronica and Christine. In Arcade's place as the Followers companion was Emily Ortal (girl who made Yes-Man), with large (colossal) liberties taken with her character. Having her in your party gives you hacking magic.
> 
> Finally, I just wanted you to know that the fic's working title was "This is so sad Yes-Man play Despacito." Anyways, enjoy.

_ O beautiful for heroes proved  
In liberating strife  
Who more than self their country loved  
And mercy more than life!  
America! America!  
May God thy gold refine  
Till all success be nobleness  
And every gain divine! _

_ O beautiful for patriot dream  
That sees beyond the years  
Thine alabaster cities gleam  
Undimmed by human tears!  
America! America!  
God shed his grace on thee  
And crown thy good with brotherhood  
From sea to shining sea! _

* * *

On Tuesday, October 20th, 2281, at 0600 hours (give or take), Arcade Israel Gannon traipsed sleepily into the cantina, where he was distributed his morning rations. Meal in hand, he slumped down into one of the cafeteria chairs, setting the tray on the long, wooden table with chipping yellow paint. 

"Geeze," laughed a girl across the table from him, dressed in a dust-brown uniform, "look at what the cat dragged in! Sleep alright, Arcade?"

He yawned. "Like a rock."

"Didn't stay up too late reading - who is it this time? Cato? Thucydides?"

"Ibn Khaldun, actually," Arcade said, cracking one bleary eye open at her. "And how is  _ your _ Cato doing, again, Maggie?"

Maggie, or Magnolia if she was in trouble, gave a snort. "Well, I'm certainly not missing roll call over it."

"I missed roll call?" Arcade asked, perking up in alarm.

"That woke you up, huh?" Maggie laughed. "Nah, it's in a minute or two. You  _ barely _ made it."

"Thank god. I can't afford another talking-to so soon; I'll go deaf from the force of Moreno's yelling."

The boy sitting next to her joined in on the conversation, through a mouth full of omelette and fresh vegetables from the greenhouses. His name was Devin, and he was about a year younger than Maggie, who was already plenty young at only 25 years old, compared to Arcade's 35. "You get disciplined by the Interim Lieutenant himself, right? That's rough." His grin turned mischievous. "Special treatment for the special boy. Save some Moreno for the rest of us!"

"Well, I suppose it's what you get when you're the only person here older than twenty-five and younger than fifty," Arcade sighed. "I have to set a good example - or be made a good example _of_ \- or else you kids might get the wrong idea."

"I still can't believe that's the case. I mean, I guess I just kind of accepted it when I was younger, but now that I'm older, it's crazy to me that you're the only one. Seriously,  _ no one _ had sex between here and Navarro?" Devin asked, eyebrow arching.

"No, people were having sex," Arcade corrected. "They weren't having  _ babies _ . We all had to salvage supplies out of bunkers whose reactors hadn't seen proper maintenance for decades or were deliberately blown up. Power armor and Rad-X protect you from a lot, but they're not impervious. And I believe I've already told you that the only reason I wasn't taken east with the main force like all the other children were was because my parents insisted I stay with them?"  


Devin shrugged. "Maybe. You say a lot of things, Arcade; you can't expect me to listen to _all_ of them."

Arcade snorted. "The only one among them who  _ didn't _ have sex was me, and that is still,  _ tragically, _ true to this day."

The kids around him laughed, Anne-Marie, a serious girl, patting him sympathetically on the back. After that, they fell into their usual morning chatter, talking about the day's training, lessons, and chores, what safety films they wanted to watch later, who was kissing whom in the one old supply closet that no one ever used for any purpose but scandalous midnight rendezvouses. Arcade, still exhausted from a late night, opted to keep quiet until he heard the ding of the intercom, and Interim Colonel Judah Kreger's voice came on over the silenced room.

"Stand," their leader said, and everyone rose to their feet, facing the Old World flag - tattered at the edges, but still boldly emblazoned with red, white, and blue, hanging over the door at the front of the cantina. 

"Salute," came the next order, and in unison, everyone assumed position - heels together, backs straight, toes 45° apart, left hands down at their waists, the fingers of their right hands brushing the rims of their hats - those who were wearing hats, anyway. Arcade was not one of them, finding their usage rather silly since they spent all day indoors, but since it was one of the few articles of clothing they were allowed to personalize, many of the kids were wearing theirs.

A few seconds later, Judah Kreger began. Within moments of his starting, the cafeteria followed, every member reciting the oath that had been ingrained to them since they were born with a single, echoing voice.

"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Some days, when he was not so dead tired, he could let himself get caught up in the stateliness of it all. The sense of unity, of purpose, the sheer swelling majesty of hearing so many voices rise in unison, they made something in his heart tremble. Frankly, the Pledge of Allegiance was religious, spiritual, and mankind was spiritual by nature; there existed no culture without its symbols, its rituals, its ways of affirming brotherhood and oneness and purpose, and this was theirs. Today was not a day for revelling, however; it was a day for sneaking a nap in the medbay when no one was looking, so Arcade let his mind wander as he mechanically repeated the words.

"At ease," Judah called when the pledge was done. Along with everyone else, Arcade slid his left foot out to shoulder-width, brought his hands behind his back, and relaxed. Maggie, in Arcade's peripheral vision, was rolling her head from side to side. She always complained that the salute was too stiff for her liking.

Judah then started rattling off a report of yesterday's numbers while the Lieutenants and Secretaries did a head count for their respective divisions. This report was, as usual, filled with no surprises - crop yields were a few ticks higher than the median of last year, water purity was holding steady, the radiation outside was still there (who could have thought), etc. etc. 

"And now, news from the scouts."

This, Arcade  _ did _ pay attention to. No one under the age of 50 was currently a scout, although a few of the younger generation were in training. Not Arcade, however. His poor eyesight, which their Auto-Docs could not fix, combined with the fact that he had among the lowest scores in the physical and combat simulations, meant that he'd likely never even see field deployment, much less the unpredictable, dangerous task of scouting the movements of mutant settlements. He was fascinated by them - the creatures who had come to inhabit the world mankind had left in ruin, who had even chased their remnants into hiding - and it was really only through these daily scouting reports that he was able to hear any word of their little lives.

"It's too far West for us to confirm for ourselves," Judah said, "but near Goodsprings, a Courier was shot in the head and managed to survive. We're not sure if this has any tactical value to anybody, but the radio won't shut up about it, so there you go."

A few chuckles from the crowd. He then moved on to general updates about the state of the nearby topography - the Legion to the east was still doing what the Legion did, and Arcade pulled a face as he listened to reports of more rape and pillage and conquering. On one hand, he could appreciate the sheer efficacy with which they moved - it was clear that the person who ruled them was a gifted and educated politician - but on the other, their reenactment of Ancient Rome was full of cherry-picked holes, and that made their little costume party insulting more than anything. Every time he heard about their tactics, he was blown-away by how short-sighted they were. It was, honestly, pretty amazing that they managed to sustain their numbers, about a thousand-ish people camped out all along the Colorado, when their tactics involved so much self-sacrifice. Didn't they realize that a trained soldier was years and years of investment each? It boggled the mind how easily they threw those lives away.  


This time around, in a move Arcade would call unforgivably stupid, they'd irradiated Searchlight. Well, there was no hard evidence it was the Legion, but considering the Legion controlled Cottonwood Cove just a few miles away, Searchlight was a major NCR Ranger camp, and the Legion was a fan of drastic, suicidal maneuvers, it seemed pretty obvious who to blame. 

Next was the NCR, in dire straits, as usual. They were overextended, understaffed, and headed by politicians, not strategists, which meant that it was entirely possible, if not  _ likely, _ that they'd be losing the Dam to the Legion in the upcoming battle, despite their technological and numeric advantages. For now, Judah only stuck to the facts of the matter - they were plagued by raiders to the West, Legion to the East, and all in between were stretched thin enough to break. However, there had been talks all up and down the ranks that, should the Legion look like they were going to win, their little sect might step in to preserve the Dam itself. The Legion, heathens that they were, would probably try to destroy its inner workings (nevermind that Romans were brilliant architects and engineers); at least in the hands of the NCR, the monument was being treated as the technological marvel that it was.

For now, the most major update was that the Correctional Facility to the west - once more too far west for them to confirm with their own eyes - had been usurped by the prisoners there. Even though it was so close to the NCR's own territory, it seemed like they had no means of re-establishing control - and if that wasn't just a testament to how poorly the NCR was handling its New Vegas campaign...

Finally, some random updates on the surrounding area at large. There was still a strange radio broadcast up on Black Mountain that appeared to be aimed toward Super Mutants, and a rumor among the normal mutants about more Super Mutants in a ski lodge to the far northwest. Tensions between the native populations just outside the Strip and the NCR refugees were starting to shed sparks, which were likely to grow into an all-out wildfire if left unchecked. HELIOS 1 would sometimes send out a transmission to their specialized receivers, but the contents were all from...some sort of idiot, who seemed to be randomly pressing buttons inside one of the control rooms, so the NCR didn't seem to be any closer to unlocking the facility's secrets. And finally, the Brotherhood of Steel were still holed up in Hidden Valley. This was an especially sore spot for Arcade's group, because the Brotherhood squatting in the Valley meant that they'd had to make do with an ancillary supply bunker to the east. They'd managed to expand into the canyon, protected from discovery by packs of roaming deathclaws let loose on the surface, but it had been several years of hard labor to turn this place into a self-sufficient settlement, and Arcade's hands still bore callouses from those days.

"...And that concludes the morning briefing. You are all dismissed."

With that, the cantina din immediately resumed, everyone collapsing into their seats to finish their meals. Arcade noted, with some disappointment, that his omelette had gone cold.  


Soon after, people started filtering into their assigned divisions. Maggie went to comms, since she was a trainee there, while Devin went to join the other combat specialists for equipment maintenance. The three of them would see each other again around 1400 hours, when the 18-25 age bracket would get their turn on the combat sim VR pods (Arcade had been included in their group, rather than with the 50+ veterans), but until then, they'd be running on separate schedules.

Arcade was bound for the medbay, which was lightly staffed at the best of times. There were two doctors, not including him, and three trainees in total, trading shifts throughout the day. But since they had two working Auto-Docs, most of their actual duties consisted of compounding medicine and doing their own specialized VR sims. The latter was mostly done to kill time, rather than to actually learn how to perform emergency procedures, since it was highly unlikely they'd ever be without their Auto-Docs . No one in this base had seen  _ real _ combat in at least 20 years _at least_ , so even though Arcade had memorized how to treat thirty types of bullet wound and could probably amputate a shattered limb with his eyes closed, he doubted he'd ever need to  _ use _ this knowledge for the rest of his life. At least, he hoped he never would.

"Hello, Arcade." Lucy, an older woman in a white labcoat, greeted him as he walked in. He smiled and fetched his own labcoat from the wall, slipping it on over his standard-issue black undershirt. Beneath their feet were square rubber mats to catch liquid runoff, which were squeaky-clean from disuse, and the walls here had been painted white so that messes would be easier to spot. The only actual stain left on the white paint, however, had been from a chemical spill Arcade had made five years ago, which left a big, blue splatter pattern that had been shamefully covered up by a medical cabinet. Little bits of the splash stain still peeked out from behind it. 

The two Auto-Docs were front-and-center, and to be perfectly honest, they took up a lot more floorspace than they needed to, such that the examination table was shunted off to one side, and the rest beds, separated by thin white curtains, were shoved into the other corner, brushing up against the single VR pod. But Auto-Docs were big and heavy, and rearranging them was a lot of taking them apart and putting them back together, so despite several submitted requests to the Interim Colonel to get a couple of people in power armor to rearrange the room, it'd never been high enough priority to actually happen.

"Good morning, Lucy. What's the plan for today?"

"Trying in vain to reclaim my high score on the neurosurgery simulations," she said. "You?"

"I wish you the best of luck. I was actually going to borrow one of the beds for a few hours...with your blessing, of course."

Lucy gave him a wry grin. "Of course. Should I put you down for a UTI or an STD when I submit the official record?"

"Can't a man OD on Med-X in peace?" Arcade huffed, stretching himself out on the examination table. "Wake me if something comes up, or in a REM cycle. Or two, if you're feeling generous."

"Sweet dreams, Arcade," Lucy said. "If your slumber is troubled, it is most certainly not because I've decided to attempt a neo-lobotomy on you in your sleep."

Arcade snorted. "I am only excellent because I learned from the best."

"Flattery will keep you safe for today."

* * *

The door to the medbay slid open at about 1100 hours. Arcade and Peter, the trainee who'd replaced Lucy at 10, both looked up from their work in alarm.

Circe, one of the old-timers, came barrelling in with a limp child's body in her arms, a gaggle of pale-faced, wide-eyed children following closely behind her, stopped at the door. Arcade saw blood on Circe's uniform and jumped to his feet as Peter grew pale beside him.

"What happened?" Arcade asked, nearly tripping over the desk to get to her. As he approached, he recognized the child as Newton, a loud and boisterous young boy, and could now see that his arm - the one pressed up against Circe's chest - was mangled and bleeding.

Circe took a breath to steady herself and replied in a harsh, military bark. "We were socializing the juvenile deathclaws and one of them took a bite. He needs stitches, maybe an amputation."

Arcade nodded and took him from her. "Understood," he said, glancing back at the Auto-Docs and down at Newton's injury. "Peter, prepare the surgical bay."

No reply. Arcade turned and barked the order again, this time in the tone they'd all been conditioned to obey since birth. He hated using it, but this was an emergency. The worst possible emergency, honestly.

"Peter,  _ you will prepare the surgical bay." _

Peter immediately snapped out of his daze to give Arcade a salute. Even the kids outside the door stiffened up into a proper stance.

"Sir, yes sir!" 

"Surgery?" Circe asked, alarmed. "Not the Auto-Doc?"

"The Auto-Docs are calibrated for adults right now. Fiddling with the settings will waste too much time."

Peter had punched in the requisite codes on the door to the operation room and the doors slid open with a pressurized hiss. The two of them hurried inside, Circe nervously following to the door.

"Anything that I can do?" she asked.

Arcade was already busy changing into the sanitized surgery garb inside the room, not wasting even a second.

"Comfort the kids," he said, more brusque than he'd like behind the mask he was affixing to his face. "They need a stable adult right now."

Circe took another deep breath in and out, then nodded and took her leave. The door slid shut behind her. Peter was fumbling with his own protective coverings, his eyes darting nervously to and fro.

"Peter," Arcade said, sternly.

Peter snapped to attention. "Sir."

"Breathe, center yourself, and focus. This is what you've been training for. It's just like your sims."

"Yes, sir."

Arcade arranged Newton's body on the operating table so they could better see the injury. The wound really was terrible; Circe's initial diagnosis had been right. The more he examined it, the more likely an amputation became - the bones in his hand were shattered in too many places to be just a fracture or break, the wrist nearly sliced clean off. A tourniquet had been applied to his upper arm to keep him from bleeding out.

"Is he...going to be alright?" Peter asked, weakly, as he rolled surgical tools and anaesthesia up to Arcade's side. 

"That's what we're here to ensure," Arcade said. "Prepare an IV. I think the higher-ups will forgive us for dipping into our stock of O-."

* * *

The procedure took the better part of an hour. Peter managed to recover his nerves pretty quickly, but they were catching up to him now that he was done, and he was sitting doubled-over in a chair with his head in his hands. Circe and the kids weren't able to stay and wait for the operation to end, but she popped in between her shifts to check in as Arcade was washing their blood-stained equipment.

"How is he?" she asked, in a quiet voice. 

"Alive and stable," Arcade said, "minus a hand, but the tourniquet saved his arm and quite possibly his life. Good work."

She looked relieved. "Thank god I took a summer to learn emergency procedures."

"Indeed." Arcade shook the water off a scalpel blade, then turned to face her. "What happened? This generation of deathclaws is more docile than ever."

Circe let out a long breath. "I think he was trying to provoke it on purpose. I wasn't paying close enough attention; another child was showing me something she'd found in their nest. And then when it did happen, it happened so fast…"

"Unfortunately, it only ever happens fast," Arcade said, grimly. "Human life is fragile. It's unfortunate that Newton had to learn that the hard way."

"Yeah."

"And what happened to the deathclaw?"

"Immediately euthanized. The mom's not happy about it, so we might be short some eggs for a while. You know how alphas get when their babies die."

"I'm sure Brianna is devastated." 

"She is. Those deathclaws are basically her own flesh and blood. I'm sure she'd rather the juvenile have survived than Newton."

Arcade sighed through his nose. "I guess this is a good reminder for all of us that they're still a long ways off from being domesticated," he said, finally. "I'm always terrified of this exact thing happening when it's my turn to socialize with the pack."

"Honestly, I'd forgotten to be scared," Circe said, a frustrated expression on her face. "You start to call them by pet names, think of them as dogs, and then…"

Solemnly, Arcade hefted a small, waterproofed bag up to the desk, about the size and shape of a purse.

"The remains of his hand are in here," Arcade said. "Can I ask you to take this down to the compost pile? This is Peter's first operation, and he's taking it pretty hard. I don't want to leave him alone right now."

"...Yeah," Circe said, hesitating before taking the bag from him. "You've got balls of steel, you know that, Arcade? You don't look shaken up about this at all."

Arcade gave her a wry grin. "That's only because I know I need to be calm for the kids," he said. "Just like you and Peter need to be."

"Getting lectured by someone twenty years my junior," Circe laughed, some of the tension leaving her shoulders. "You're a good man, Arcade. Thank you."

She turned and left the room, and Arcade was free to finish the last of his cleaning. When the last scalpel was set blade-down into the drying rack, he took a breath to steady himself and walked over to where Peter was sitting, kneeling down to his level.

"Peter," he said, softly, "are you alright?"

"Y...yeah. Or, I will be. Newton's going to live, so. Yeah. Yeah."

"'Will be' isn't the same as 'are.' Talk to me."

Peter took a shaky breath in and out. 

"There was just...so much...blood," he said, finally. "And Newton really could have died. I got...freaked out. It's one thing when it's a simulation, or an enemy you're killing, and it's another when it's someone you  _ know…" _

Arcade gently patted his back, letting him babble to his heart's content. He turned watery eyes on Arcade.

"How are you so calm?" he asked.

Arcade gave him a reassuring smile. "Age, for one thing. You're only fourteen; I'm more than twice as old as you are. Experience, for another. This isn't the first time I've stitched someone up. It  _ does  _ get easier the more you do it."

He patted Peter on the shoulder. "At least we have anaesthesia now. I was younger than you when I had to play assistant for my first surgery, and the patient was screaming the whole time."

"I hope I never have to amputate a kid's arm again," Peter mumbled.

"Every doctor's dream is that they will one day be obsolete," Arcade said. 

"Am I weak?" Peter asked. 

"Perhaps," Arcade said, "but your hands weren't shaking so bad that you couldn't properly insert the IV, and you were able to follow all your instructions and remembered your training. I think you should be proud of that, rather than dwelling on whether or not being shaken up makes you weak."

"But what if I _am_ weak?"

"What  _ if _ you are?" Arcade asked back. "What will you do about it, if you decide that you are?"

Peter let out a laugh, shaky and unsure. "God, Arcade. Anyone ever tell you you're insufferable? Can't you just tell me I'm not weak?"

"All the time, and no. It's not for me to decide." Arcade smiled at him. "Regardless of whether you are or not, you did excellent work today. Thanks to your efforts, Newton is going to be able to wake up tomorrow when his anaesthesia wears off, and in short order, he'll be back to playing with his friends. Those are the facts."

"...Thanks," Peter said, managing a smile at those words. "Thanks. I mean it."

"Glad to see you're feeling better," Arcade said. "If you're able to stomach it, we should head to the mess hall for lunch. The operation was intense for both of us, and we could use the calories."

Peter swallowed. "Not sure if I can eat," he admitted, "but I could definitely use a glass of water. Or three."

"How about some omelettes?" Arcade asked, wryly. "Some nice, fresh, deathclaw omelettes - "

Peter punched him in the arm "No!"

* * *

"Out of blood and guts we grew!"

Forty-odd footfalls hit the metal grates at the same time.

Forty-odd voices repeated Interim Lieutenant Orion Moreno's words in cadence.

"Out of blood and guts we grew!"

"We bleed in red, white, and blue!"

"We bleed in red, white, and blue!"

Every instructor had their own take on this song's lines, and Moreno, being as Enclave as Enclave got, opted for a particularly… patriotic flavor.

"Sound off!"

"One two."

"Sound off!"

"Three four."

"Sound off!"

"One two three four. One two, three four!"

The base was rather small, and they couldn't exactly do their training outdoors, so instead they ran along a route that took them around the entire base - around the greenhouse fields in blooming, verdant green, bathed in artificial sun; around the rec room, covered in shelves full of holo-tapes and terminals with archives of whole libraries (plural) stored inside; around the vertibirds docked in the hangar, being serviced by their maintenance team, who didn't even look up from their work as the 18-25 age bracket snaked around them.

"Muties fight with sticks and spears!"

"Muties fight with sticks and spears!"

"Put a bullet 'tween their ears!"

"Put a bullet 'tween their ears!"

Arcade's glasses refused to stay on properly during the daily jog. But without them, he risked stepping on the shoes of the person in front of him.  


They sounded off again when they hit a tunnel covered wall-to-wall in painted murals. It'd started when a small regimen of teenagers had gotten their hands on the base's spare paint, and then, to prevent them from being punished too harshly, Arcade's mother had dug up studies about the positive effects art - both creating and indulging in it - had on human development. Now, almost uncontrollably, the base was covered in paintings applied directly to bare walls. Moreno hated it, along with a good number of the more traditional old-timers, but they could only pry paintbrushes out of the young'uns' cold, dead hands at this point.

"NCR ain't got no souls!"

"NCR ain't got no souls!"

"Pump their bodies full of holes!"

"Pump their bodies full of holes!"

Now they were jogging past the bunks, all empty at this time of day save what few people took the night shifts. Getting caught napping during working hours was a punishable offence - if loosely enforced, thank god.

"Brotherhood stole all our gear!"

"Brotherhood stole all our gear!"

"We'll teach them just who to fear!"

"We'll teach them just who to fear!"

They'd finally lapped back around the gym, half the room covered in original metal grating, half the room blasted-out of the canyon walls to make room for their VR pods. 

"Muties scratching at the door!"

"Muties scratching at the door!"

"Show them what we're fighting for!"

Beside him, Arcade heard Maggie reply under her breath with "Moreno's got a grudge for sure," and he stifled a laugh.

They turned and reached the armory, suits of power armor carefully arranged in their charging bays, gauss rifles and energy weapons lining the walls.

"If you're asked to whom you pray!"

"If I'm asked to whom I pray!"

"Tell them, 'the U S of A!'"

"I tell them, 'the U S of A!'"

"Sound off!"

"One two!"

"Sound off!"

"Three four!"

"Sound off!"

"One two three four. One two, three four!"

* * *

"Atten- _ tion!" _

As a unit, the 18-25 age bracket (Arcade included) slid their feet in until their heels clicked, arms held stiffly at their sides. 

"First division, on VR pods!"

"Sir, yes sir!"

About ten-odd people peeled off to march toward the pods, punching the keyboards until the lids slid open.

"Second division, on workout gear. Third and fourth, you're sparring."

"Sir, yes sir!" 

"Gannon," Moreno called, and Arcade felt his stomach sink. "Everyone here goes too soft on you. Today, your partner is me."

"Sir, yes sir," Arcade barked, wholly groaning on the inside. The others weren't allowed to turn their heads, but he could feel pitying gazes on his back as he jogged up to the mat.

Everyone else paired up around them, a couple old-timers serving as coaches. Partners faced each other, at the ready, and waited for Moreno's signal.

"Begin!" he shouted, and dropped into a combat stance himself. He and Arcade circled each other, bodies low to the ground.

"First move's yours, brat," Moreno said. "We're gonna get your CQC scores up if it kills you."

"Sir, I have a sinking feeling it's going to kill me, sir," Arcade said.

Moreno snorted. "You get your smart mouth from your father. Let's see if you inherited anything else, eh?"

Arcade leapt at him. His first blow was parried, but he was expecting that much, so he used the momentum to throw a hook with his left, which Moreno dodged by moving just slightly backwards. Arcade couldn't pull back in time to avoid the kick that came flying at his side, which hit him with such force that it skewed his glasses, and, while disoriented by his sudden lack of vision, Moreno finished the fight by grappling him and throwing him hard onto his back.

"Is that big body of yours only good for getting tossed around, brat?" Moreno barked at him. "In combat with a mutie, you'd be  _ dead! _ They don't hesitate; they go for your throat with their  _ teeth _ if they have to! Now get back on your feet and try again!"

Still trying to recover his breath, Arcade pushed himself back up into standing position. This time Moreno took the first move, leaving Arcade barely any room to maneuver as he blocked and dodged. Behind every blow was genuine, borderline malicious intent, and before he knew it, he was pinned to the ground again with an arm behind his back.

" _ You are a fucking embarrassment, _ " Moreno spat. "You'll be dead before you can even blink. Your father's rolling in his grave, Arcade!"

Off-duty, Moreno was still gruff, but Arcade respected his prowess and loyalty, and they'd shared some laughs before. On-duty, however, no blow was too low if it meant "motivating" the trainees. And that about summed him up - a man who commanded both deep respect and curried no favor.

Arcade was pulled - yanked, more like - to his feet and ordered to try again. And that was basically how today's training session went - Arcade tried, and failed, to fight, and Moreno would throw him to the ground and castigate him. Eventually, judging by the opening of the VR pods, the hour was up - but Moreno didn't stop. Arcade was bruised and battered all over by this point, because Moreno did not hold back, but still he was being pulled to his feet and told to fight.

"Sir," Arcade said, quietly, "the hour is up, sir."

"The hour is up when I  _ say _ it's up, brat," Moreno snapped. "Time only moves when your CO  _ says _ it does. This only ends when I  _ say _ it ends, and I haven't said that it's ended yet, have I?"

"Sir, no sir."

"Then you will get up and  _ fight, _ Gannon."

* * *

"Moreno's just worried for you," one of the old-timers said, applying a bandage to the split in Arcade's skin just below his hairline, from where Orion hadn't held back his finishing blow. "Your father was one of the best soldiers we had. He sees your father in you, so he gets frustrated when you don't quite measure up."

"He sure has a violent way of showing it," Arcade said, dryly, as he pinched the bridge of his nose to staunch the blood leaking out.

The old-timer snorted. "Don't hold it against him. He took the loss of Navarro - and your father with it - real hard. I'm pretty sure the reason he pushes you like this is because he's terrified of the same thing happening to you. You're like a son to him - to all of us."

Arcade said nothing, just stared at the metal grates on the ground that separated the top level of bunks from the bottom. On the walls and ceiling were painted a big, blue sky, which touched the tips of skyscrapers in white, mountains in purple, and fields drenched in washes of glittering gold. But even if they tried to paint the black, steel grates, it'd be rubbed off by their boots or stained by the grease and oil tracked in from the storage rooms and hangar bays, and so no matter how brightly the walls were painted, one side of their prison ever was constructed out of cold, metal bars.

"Earnest," Arcade said, looking up at him. "Do you really think we'll be able to restore America? Is that dream realistic?"

"Sure I'm sure. Sure as the sun rises in the east."

So many of them hadn't ever seen a real sunrise in their lives. Was that fact really so set in stone? But Earnest continued, eyes looking far away into some glorious future that Arcade could only sometimes catch glimpses of. 

"That's what we were born for - you, me, and everyone else here. To keep safe the American way, to protect freedom and liberty and justice for all. Listen, Arcade, we beat back the Chinese, and we  _ won _ the Great War. We'll win this new one with the muties, too. And whatever war comes after that, we'll win that one also. And so on and so forth."

Arcade chuckled. "You make it sound like war is inevitable," he said.

Earnest laughed with him. "Isn't that exactly what you're teachin' those kids of yours, Arcade? In that book you and your mom were tryin' to get us all to read, 1994 or something."

"1984."

"Right. It's like you two said - as long as there's a war on, we'll stand united. And that's what we really need right now, when our numbers are so few."

Arcade opened his mouth, about to speak, then decided against it, realizing there was a chasm here that he could never cross. 

"'Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia,'" he finally settled on saying.

"What?" Earnest asked. "You sure you didn't get hit on the head too hard, Arcade?"

"...I'm fine," he said, sadly. "I'm perfectly alright, Earnest. I just love Big Brother, that's all."

Earnest gave him a funny look. "If you say so...make sure to get checked out by an Auto-Doc before you join us for dinner, alright?"

"Alright."

* * *

Before he went to bed that night, he peeked into the medical bay. Dahlia, another old-timer, was on-duty for most evenings, trading off with the other two full-time doctors.

"How's Newton?" Arcade asked.

"Stable," Dahlia said, in a clipped tone. She was always a very reticent person, one of the few people still performing research and experiments on muties, right up until the fall of Navarro. Arcade had never been very comfortable around her, although she'd also been the best teacher he'd had where medicine was concerned. 

"That's good to hear," Arcade said. "Still unconscious?"

"Yep."

"Alright. I leave him in your capable hands, then."

"Mhm."

* * *

Newton woke up during Arcade's shift the next day. He rushed over, relieved, when he'd heard the first whimper from Newton's bed. He'd been hooked up to an IV and a catheter, his small body a mess of ugly tubes and wires that stabilized and monitored his condition.

"...Mr. Gannon?" He blinked, blearily, eyes still dazed and unfocused.

"Hello, Newton," he said, carefully observing the boy. "How are you feeling?"

Newton blinked into the harsh lights, licked at his lips. There were painkillers in his IV drip already, so with any luck, the answer wouldn't be "in pain."

"I can't move my arm."

"We've tied it to a splint to keep you from moving it," Arcade explained, feeling grim. "However…"

"I can't feel my hand."

"Yes. I'm very sorry, Newton. We had to amputate it, just above the wrist."

Newton's eyes widened, even if he didn't seem to fully comprehend the meaning of the word. "Amputate?"

"Cut it off," Arcade said. There were probably kinder, more tactful ways of explaining these things to children, but those were never covered in their sims. All he had was the cold and brutal truth.  


"It's gone?" His heart rate was rising with the panic in his voice. "I don't have a hand anymore?"

"No, you don't. I'm sorry."

Tears welled up in his eyes while Arcade fruitlessly tried to comfort him. "It's alright, Newton. You'll be alright."

In a horrified little voice, Newton asked, "am I…going to be fused into a suit of power armor like Miss Grace is?"

"Is that what you're scared of?" Arcade asked. Newton nodded frantically at him.

"The Rules say that if you aren't useful to the Enclave, you have to be euthanized," he blubbered. "So that's why Miss Grace was glued into her power armor, but that's scary and I don't want it, I don't want it, I don't want it - "

Arcade let out a long breath, feeling his heart clench a little at the word "euthanize."

"No, Newton, you won't be sutured into a suit of power armor," he explained, keeping his own words calm for Newton's sake. "Miss Grace suffered a spinal injury during our migration out of Navarro and lost the use of  _ all _ her limbs, not just her hand. We  _ will _ have to get you fitted for an implant to attach prosthetics to once you're recovered, but we won't need to do anything nearly as drastic as that."

Genevieve Grace was a proud, stubborn woman - maybe the most stubborn Arcade had ever known. As much as he'd have liked to comfort Newton by saying that the euthanization rule had almost never been enforced outside of infants born with obvious physical defects or health issues - the Enclave could find a use for anyone - Gennie was the kind of person who'd probably have asked to be euthanized if she'd ever stopped being useful, herself. 

Nowadays, she wasn't much better than a living, breathing turret watching over the front door, a job that was basically unnecessary, but everyone at the base, Gennie included, preferred that she have a use (even if in name only) than for her to waste away or die in the wilderness. Arcade wasn't sure if it was a mercy, a kindness, a mark of Gennie's strength of character, or something rather sad, that she felt so strongly that she still had to be useful, even after everything that she'd been through.

Newton looked up at him with wide, trusting eyes. "Do you promise, Mr. Gannon?"

"Yes," Arcade said. "I promise, you will be fine, Newton. You'll be okay. And you'll have a cool robot hand. Just like Nanabot's. You'll be able to attach a flamer to your wrist if you want to."

Newton managed to perk up a bit at that. "A  _ flamer. _ "

"Or an egg whisk, if you want to get dangerous," Arcade joked. "So don't be so down, okay? And you don't even have to go to any lessons while you're recovering. Isn't that nice?"  


Newton gave Arcade a weak, fragile little smile. "Can I still see my friends?"

"I'll ask Circe to bring them down here to visit once you're a little better," Arcade said. "For now, lean back and try and get some rest. You've got to keep nice and calm and still so your body can do its healing."

* * *

At 1100 hours, Arcade volunteered to teach the 8-13 age bracket on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. The kids cheered as he walked in, their combat instructor gratefully dipping out for a much-needed break, as Arcade took his place at the front of the classroom - a section of the hangar bay that had been cordoned off and set up with desks and terminals. Just down the way was the pilot team in their training pods, and down from  _ them _ were the 14-18 age bracket group in their combat training pods. On Fridays, Arcade took a turn with the pilot team. While he was a doctor as his primary trade, almost no one in the base was limited to a single skillset - they simply didn't have enough people to allow their members to specialize so narrowly. It was already standard Enclave policy for all citizens to receive rudimentary military training; it wasn't that difficult for their sect to start teaching everyone basic competence in everything else, too. And so Arcade was a doctor, a pilot, a teacher, an archivist, an agricultural expert, and - even if he was terrible in combat - could still maintain and use any piece of standard-issue equipment.

"Good morning, kids," Arcade called out to the gaggle of children before him. After the "bumper crop" of kids they'd birthed with artificial wombs once they'd finally gotten those working - all of whom were now 18 or older - their population had evened out to about 13-15 kids per age bracket. That still meant that people aged 50+ were outnumbered by people aged 25 or younger about 2:1, but now that the bumper crop had grown into young adults, the burdens of running the compound had eased significantly.

"Does anyone remember what we talked about last Friday?"

A bunch of hands went up. Arcade picked Emily, a small, mousey-looking girl with brown hair and freckles. "We were talking about the differences between socialism and communism."

Arcade smiled. "That's right. I asked you to come up with questions at the end of the lesson. Does anyone have some for me?"

Dylan was practically jumping out of his seat to answer. "When I tried to ask Mama Judith about it, she told me socialists and communists were evil. But are they?"

Arcade couldn't help grinning. "Well, Dylan, to answer that, first we have to answer the question, 'what is evil?'" 

"Ummm…" Dylan frowned. "I think evil is people who try to hurt other people on purpose."

"Well, I think that definition works well enough," Arcade said. "So, based on what we learned about socialism and communism, do you think the people who believe in those systems want to hurt other people?"

Dylan mulled it over. "Maybe?" he finally allowed. "Marx said there has to be violent overthrowing to have communism."

"Well, then maybe communism is evil," Arcade allowed.

"But that doesn't seem right," Emily interrupted. "Because people who are communist say that the point is that the prole-tarots get hurt first by the boo-jerseys, who are capitalists. So they're just getting rid of the people who are actually trying to hurt people."

"Well, that's an interesting point as well, Emily," Arcade said. "So, maybe our definition of 'evil' is wrong?"

Marjorie, a girl with similar vision problems to Arcade (it made sense, seeing as both he and his mother had donated genetic material to the artificial wombs, so it stood to reason that some of the kids might inherit their vision problems) stood up and fumbled with her too-big glasses. "Excuse me!" she half-shouted. "I have something to say."

All eyes turned to her. She was flushed red from the attention, but cleared her throat and continued. "I don't think overthrowing a government by force is good. If Dylan pushes Emily, but Emily is allowed to just push back, if Dylan is also allowed to push back, then it doesn't stop until one of them has their arms broken and can't push anymore."

The kids murmured among themselves, absorbing this new ideology. 

"But that won't happen," Dylan said, a frustrated look on his face. "A grown-up will stop us from pushing each other first."

"Yeah," Emily said. "And, I wouldn't push Dylan. Because we're friends."

Marjorie grew flustered, fumbling more with her glasses, and Arcade stepped in.

"Well, Dylan, I think Marjorie's example was fine," he said, calmly. "Maybe with you kids, an adult  _ would _ step in, but there's no adult to stop governments and revolutionaries from fighting, is there?"

Dylan thought about it for a while. "I guess not…"

"And one day, you'll be the adults," Arcade said. "And one day, you and Emily might have a fight. And then there really won't be anyone there to stop you from pushing each other."

"I don't want that to happen," Emily said, horrified at the thought. 

"But it might," Arcade pointed out. "It's the same way with countries. The United States was practically Great Britain's child. They thought they were always going to get along. But then…"

"Taxes," Emily said.

"Monarchy," Dylan offered.

"Revolution," Marjorie finished.

"Right," Arcade said. "Sometimes, irreconcilable differences will just show up, and in those cases, conflicts often become war. Many types of war: cold, hot, revolutionary, civil, world...and Great. Just like Marjorie said, sometimes if pushing starts, it doesn't stop until one or both sides have gotten hurt so badly that they can't fight anymore."

Arcade levied the quiet class with his gaze. "The question isn't whether or not one side is evil, I think," he said, "but rather, if the end result is worth the fighting. So what do you think, Dylan? What do communists want?"

He thought about it. "They want a world where everyone gets along. No one goes hungry, but everyone has to work and do whatever they can. Kind of like we do."

"That's right," Arcade said, beaming. "We currently operate in a way that's very similar to communism. But we've also historically operated like capitalists before, where if you couldn't work, you couldn't get paid, and if you didn't have enough money, you couldn't eat. So if we lived like that, and some of us wanted to fight our parents so that we could make things how they are right now, where everyone has to work, but everyone always has food on their plates, would you do it?"

Dylan thought long and hard about it.

"Yeah," he finally said. "Because I like the way things are now."

He looked up at Arcade with big, curious eyes. "But then why would people be capitalists in the first place? Because you said last week that under a capitalism system, Miss Grace wouldn't get paid because she lost all her arms and legs and couldn't work, so she couldn't make capital, and wouldn't be able to eat and stuff. But I like Mrs. Grace a lot, and I think most people who talk to her do, so if capitalism makes her be hungry wouldn't most people be sad and not like it?"

Arcade's grin turned devious. "Well, Dylan, you've alighted on something very interesting about capitalism. Here's a phrase I want you kids to memorize:  _ cui bono? _ It means, 'for whose benefit?' Or in simpler terms, 'who is this good for?' In communism and socialism, the answer is easy: those systems are good for the people like Miss Grace, who have difficulty working, because even though they can't do the same work as other people, they still get to eat and live well like everyone else. But in capitalism,  _ cui bono?" _

"People who can work more or better than everyone else?" Emily asked, tentatively.

"Very good! Yes, that's who capitalism benefits...in theory. But what happens if, say, I own the Colorado River? And the Colorado River is the only source of fresh water for miles and miles, and I can make money by selling the water. In that case, I'm not really working particularly hard, I'm just lucky enough to own the river. Under capitalism, I'm simply uniquely advantaged, because I have control over a scarce resource, so I can control its distribution. Therefore, most capitalists try to exert as much power as possible over scarce resources, usually with the end result of monopolies. The result of a monopoly, then, is that, without doing any extra work, you can now make extra money, because other people can _only_ buy from you, so you can set the price as high as you want."

The whole class frowned thinking about it. 

"I don't like that," Emily said.

"Why don't you like that?" Arcade asked. 

"It's not fair," she said. 

"Not fair that some people can make more money than others?"

"No, that's pretty fair," she said, trying to put her little feelings into words. "It...it's not fair that some people can control...that much."

"But even communism is about controlling things," Arcade pointed out. "To a much higher degree than capitalism, in fact. In communism, all the means of production - these scarce resources - usually wind up centralized into the government, which is why the system is so easy for aspiring dictators to usurp . You could say that in communism, the government has a monopoly on...everything."

"Yeah, but…"

Marjorie raised her hand, politely, and Arcade arched an eyebrow as he called on her.

"Mr. Gannon," she said, "what do you believe in?"

He smiled at her. "That's a secret," he said, tapping his lips. "While I'm your teacher, I only want to get you kids thinking about what in a society is important to  _ you _ . What do you think is fair? Who do you want society to be able to support? There isn't a clearly-defined right or wrong; I want you to come to your own answers, as uninfluenced as possible by what us stuffy adults think."

Marjorie pouted, clearly dissatisfied with his answer. "Why won't you tell us?"

"Because you are the future of America," Arcade said. "You may very well be the ones to restore America to its former glory. When that time comes, you'll need to decide what America should look like - and I want you all to have thought long and hard about it."

"But every time we talk about it, we always end up fighting like this and never decide on anything," Marjorie complained. Arcade let out a light chuckle at that.

"Exactly," he said. "These are ideas so big that mankind has been fighting over them long before you were born, and will likely be fighting over them long after you are dead. So it's actually a good thing that you're fighting over them already - it'll help you learn, help you realize, what's really  _ worth _ fighting for."

* * *

"And that's mate," Arcade said, cheerfully removing his finger from the tip of his queen. "Good game, Pascal."

Pascal, age 24 (one of Devin's fraternal triplets), was still staring, dumbfounded, at the board, before groaning and curling forward, head in his hands. "How do you _do_ that?"

"Do what?" Arcade asked, feigning innocence. Pascal glared at him from behind his fingers. Maggie laughed (cackled, really) from her perch atop one of the computers in their little corner of the archives.

"How many wins is that, now?" she asked. "Three hundred? Four?"

"Three hundred and eighty-two," Pascal muttered under his breath. He turned to glare at her. "It's not like _you_ can do any better, Maggie."

"Maybe so," she said, "but unlike you, I know when to give up."

"Bite me."

Maggie batted her eyelashes. "Only if you treat me to extra rations first."

Anne-Marie, sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest in front of a terminal, rolled her eyes with a loud sigh. "What are you guys, twelve? Some of us are trying to _read_."

Devin snickered. "You'd almost think this was a book club or something."

"It _is_ a book club, dumbass," Anne-Marie grumbled. "Which you'd know if you knew how to read."

"How about a game of bughouse?" Arcade suggested. "You can play on my side, Pascal."

"Don't patronize me," he wailed.

"Quiet!" Anne-Marie stage whispered. "Do you _want_ to wake up the old-timers and get your ass disciplined?"

"Or we could load up the VR pods and play a game of war?" Arcade suggested. Maggie laughed again.

"Face it, Arcade, no one but Pascal wants to face you these days."

"I can still beat you in a fight," Pascal grumbled under his breath.

 _"Everyone_ can beat Arcade in a fight," Devin piped up. "I'm pretty sure I saw one of the 8-13's pin him before. You know what they say, the bigger they are..."

"It's been a while since we've played go," Arcade said, electing to ignore the direction the conversation was going in.

Pascal sighed and reset the board. "Shut up. Rematch."

Arcade smiled. "As you wish."

* * *

"We make up these stupid songs!"

"You make up these stupid songs!" 

"To teach you kids what's right and wrong!"

"To teach us kids what's right and wrong!"

Today's combat training instructor was Interim Lieutenant Calvin Johnson, a man Arcade could affectionately call Moreno's polar opposite. He even led them jogging in the opposite direction Moreno did - Arcade couldn't tell if that was on purpose or not. It probably was.

"Problem is, we're getting old!"

"Problem is, you're getting old!"

"So question what you're being told!"

"So question what we're being told!"

Johnson and Moreno were constantly getting into fights over...everything under the sun. Only the fact that Judah had a god-given talent for leadership kept them from actively strangling each other. Even the jingles they used for their cadences were a competition they were holding with each other - Johnson encouraged them to get louder as they approached ADMIN, where Moreno was stationed.

"Maybe nukes are pretty bad!"

"Maybe nukes are pretty bad!"

"Maybe war is pretty bad too, come to think of it. Maybe we should all try to get along."

"Sir, that doesn't rhyme, sir!" Maggie called, giggling.

"Whoops! Alright, then, one more time from the top. We are all go-ing to die!"

"We are all go-ing to die!"

"My last words'll be 'why god, why!'"

"My last words'll be 'why god, why!'"

* * *

"Tonight's movie will be Casablanca," Arcade read into the intercom that spoke over the darkened rec room. As one of the archivists, tonight he was responsible for operating the holotapes and reels of cellulose acetate. "This film, directed by Michael Curtiz, premiered in 1942 and is regarded as being one of the finest pieces of American cinema ever made. It is set during World War II, which I hope you'll remember from your history lessons as being the war against the Axis powers, whose primary constituents were Italy, Germany, and Japan. At this point in time, Germany, under the control of the Nazis, was invading and occupying much of Europe and driving revolutionaries and dissenters out of the continent. However, this film was created before the end of the war and the discovery of Nazi Germany's concentration camps, in which millions of human beings were mercilessly slaughtered, and so the Third Reich officers portrayed in this film are not portrayed as negatively as they would come to be portrayed in later movies. The Media Cleansing Initiative in the 1986, Information Safety Act in 2021, and Campaign for Citizen Complicity in 2055 restricted, and ultimately banned, all portrayals of Nazi Germany in American media, which is how this movie wound up on the Enclave's official banlist."

He could feel the audience growing restless with the preamble, but his mother had stressed the importance of banned media over all other forms, history above entertainment. What did the government not want you to see? What mistakes did we already make? It helped that, being tasked with the restoration of America, and being initially founded out of the wealthy elite and intelligentsia, the Enclave had huge libraries full of films and books that had otherwise ceased to exist by the time of the Great War in '77. Thanks to his mother's efforts - one of the few times anyone had  _ ever _ seen her so vehement - their library had survived the transfer from Navarro entirely intact, and there were ongoing projects to restore, back up, and make copies of all their extant media.

Traditionally, this media was labelled "dangerous" and banned within the Enclave rank-and-file as well, since it bred "dissenting opinions" and "seditious attitudes." As a result, there had been pushback when his mother and the other archivists opened the libraries, but ultimately, most of the old-timers were simply too uneducated to know  _ why _ these movies were banned, and too excited to see films they never had before, so she'd gotten her way in the end. Since then, they'd almost exclusively shown films from the banlist...because it turned out that banned films were often, but not always, much more interesting to watch than the American propaganda they'd been limited to.

"Without further ado," Arcade said, pressing buttons on the projector, "I give you Casablanca, a landmark of America cinema."

* * *

Everyone convened in the Mess Hall for lunch at 1200 hours, some a bit later or earlier than others. The Enclave schedule was strict - deviating too wildly resulted in disciplinary action, and Arcade was always getting written up for missing meals. 

As he was sitting down for his lunch, however, he got tapped on the shoulder. Daisy Whitman, the woman who taught him how to fly, smiled and gave him a wave.

"Judah's calling for you, kiddo," she said.

Arcade stared at her for a second. "What? Why?"

"Dunno, but I don't think you're in trouble. This time." She gave him a wry grin. "Take your lunch with you; I think he just wants to talk."

"That's certainly reassuring," Arcade sighed, changing direction. "Thanks for coming to get me, Daisy."

"Mhm. I'll be expecting you on Friday for your vertibird training, young man. You'd better not be late, or else you'll be in some  _ real _ trouble."

Arcade laughed. "That's a scarier threat than anything Judah's ever managed. See you then."

So, passing by several people headed in the opposite direction ("you in trouble again, Arcade?" asked one of the ten-year-olds), Arcade followed the neon signs pointing to ADMIN. The door slid open when he pressed the switch next to it, and behind it stood their acting Colonel, Judah Kreger, with two men in power armor to either side. Judah looked up from his terminal when Arcade walked in, then pushed it away so he could give Arcade all his attention. Best as he could while still holding a tray of food in his off hand, Arcade gave a salute.

"At ease," Judah said, lightly. "Pull up a chair, Arcade."

Arcade obliged and set the tray down on his desk, before collapsing into the seat he wheeled over. He glanced up at the soldiers in power armor, checking for their signature dents to differentiate one from the other.

"Hello, Orion," he said, waving at the man on the left. "Calvin," he addressed the man on the right. 

Johnson relaxed and waved back. "Afternoon, Arcade," he said, voice tinny and canned through the armor. "Still fighting the good fight?"

"Aren't we all?"

Orion just grunted out his greeting, a fair deal more reticent than Johnson, while Judah leaned back in his seat and smiled.

"Why don't you two take a lunch break?" he said, glancing up at his guard. "I need to talk to Arcade alone."

"Sure thing, boss," Johnson said, while Moreno gave a formal "sir, yes sir," and they both marched out of the room, door sliding shut behind them.

Judah waited a few seconds to make sure they were gone, before turning serious eyes in Arcade's direction.

"Daisy said I wasn't in trouble," Arcade said, "but that seems like a lie when you look at me like that, Judah."

Judah cracked a small smile. "A man can't have a private talk with the boy he helped raise?"

"All due respect, sir, if you wanted to have a chat with me, you'd do it during the leisure hours." 

"Drop the 'sir' when we're alone," Judah said, pulling a bottle out from under the table. "A drink, Arcade?"

"On weekends and holidays, maybe," Arcade said, eyeing the glass getting filled up despite his protests. "Not in the middle of the day, in the middle of the workweek. What's this about, Judah?"

Judah knocked his own glass back and sighed, long and slow.

"Rodney said he heard whispers 'mong the Legion that they've seen black, metal birds in the skies far to the north."

Arcade paused. Then he reached for the glass. He drained it before he answered, alcohol scorching through his throat as he set it down on the wooden desk.

"I see," he said. "So the jig is up."

"Not just yet," Judah sighed. "Soon, though. But we both knew it wasn't going to last."

Arcade nodded, solemnly. 

The two of them had a secret that no one else in the base was privy to. And it was that, down to the last man, woman, and child, all of them were traitors - they were deserters, every last one of them, for not having held to the last man at Navarro.

Maybe it was because the main force wanted to be rid of the rejects they'd left behind, once and for all. When they'd left the west coast for the east, they'd taken with them almost all their combat units, all their wartime researchers, all their loyal yes-men, leaving at Navarro only peace-mongering eccentrics, archivists, artists, and a single elite unit under the command of a Colonel, which itself was unpopular with the higher-ups because the Devil's Brigade, as the mutants had affectionately named them, got  _ results, _ but could not be relied on to follow  _ orders. _

Or maybe it was simply because the main force had underestimated the mutants clawing at Navarro's doors. Either way, the order had been to go down with the ship, to hold until they could hold no more. There were only fifty, sixty, seventy of them at most, against hundreds of NCR troopers, dozens of Brotherhood paladins. 

Judah Kreger, the Lieutenant in charge of the Devil's Brigade, couldn't cosign his men to death in such an ignoble way. Mark Gannon and his wife Delilah, Arcade's parents, couldn't bear to watch their son get killed for crimes he had no hand in committing. They knew the NCR and Brotherhood would not be so merciful as to pardon Arcade, who was barely walking and talking on his own.

So the three of them had hatched a conspiracy. Outright defying their CO on such a final order would have been an unforgivable sin, because the Enclave stressed fidelity to country and chain of command above all else, and so the Colonel was quietly assassinated, body thrown to the coyotes, and Judah assumed control in his place. With his mother's skills as an archivist of Enclave knowledge, his father's flawless reputation, and Judah in a position where he would go unquestioned, the three were able to fake an evacuation order. A small regimen, led by Arcade's father, was left behind to put up one last fight, to buy the rest of them time to escape.

Arcade remembered watching, from the sloping side of a dusty mountain, as the detonation of Navarro's reactor lit up the night sky, as his mother wept into his hair and all the Devil's Brigade around him gave their comrade one final salute.

It was too late for the old-timers, his mother would whisper to him in the dead of the night. They hated mutants too much, feared the outside world that no longer had a place for them. The older generation,  _ her  _ generation, could not let go of the Enclave, because they had only the Enclave left. It was their fate to be forgotten, a tragic reminder of the follies of America.

And thus it was Arcade's duty to teach the youth not to repeat their mistakes. It was Arcade's duty, she said, to teach them not to hate and fear the outside world, not to cling to the Enclave, for if and when the Enclave were to return to America's western shore, surely their little sect would be eradicated, one way or another. 

"I told Orion that I was going to discipline you for what he calls 'teaching the kids dangerous ideologies,'" Judah said. "But really...I wanted to tell you to prepare yourself. I see how the kids look up to you, and I can tell they're a totally different breed than us old-timers. They paint murals on the walls and write songs and poetry and have conversations in the hallways picking apart how things went so wrong - all stuff unthinkable for us when  _ we  _ were kids in the Enclave. Between this and the battle for Hoover Dam...something's comin', Arcade, comin' for you and me and all of us, and I don't know who's going to make it out of the storm alive, but…"

He closed his eyes. "If you can, if it is at all within your power, then I want you to lead these kids into the open, Arcade. I want you to find someplace where they can be safe, be free."

Arcade closed his eyes. 

"...It's a rough day when the doctor with bad eyesight is your only hope."

There was a rueful smile in Judah's voice.

"Don't let me down, son," he said. "Get some people together, people you can trust. Have an action plan. An escape route. I'll give you this."

He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small, grey metal disk on a keyring with a shiny data crystal set in the middle. Arcade swallowed, feeling the gravity of the situation pressing down on his spine as he accepted it.

"The executive fob," he breathed. With it, one had top-level clearance to any and all government facilities - scouting reports, security bypasses, and every locked door. It was practically a skeleton key.

"Don't lose that, now," Judah said, smirking to cover up how serious this was. "There's only one of those left on this side of the continent - I don't think I'll be needing it much longer."

Arcade's hands curled around it, metal digging into his skin. This meant that things were serious, things were dire. When the Enclave came to execute the traitors, Judah would be the first to die. He was ready for it - resigned to it. 

Arcade had been raised to fill the empty space he was about to leave behind. From the moment they left Navarro, this was his destiny. For thirty years, he'd been hoping this day would never come.

"Make your parents proud, son," Judah said, unaware of how those words were a vice grip around his heart.

* * *

"Please congratulate Devin, Pascal, and Anne-Marie for graduating from salvagers to scouts. Some of you may feel it's a bit rushed, pushed through because growing tensions in the Mojave have necessitated us having more eyes and ears available, and you're right. That said, these three have only achieved excellent results, and I have full confidence that they are more than ready for the task ahead.

"On a similar note, please welcome Magnolia and Ruth into the comms room proper. One day, you may very well be taking your orders from them."

Arcade could feel the gazes of the members of his book club light onto him, realizing the meaning of his cryptic words last night. 

"I'm going to be counting on you. We all will."

They all understood now, between this and news of vertibirds seen in the skies to the north of Caesar's Legion. 

"Are they going to make us fight the mutants? Are we preparing for war?" Devin asked, nervously, his mousey brown eyes flitting around the circle. "Arcade, say something."

"I wish I could, but for your own protection, the less you know, the better." Arcade's fingers clutched the pages of his novel. "When the time comes for you to act, your starting pistol will be the truth, straight from Judah's mouth. I'll answer all of your questions then."

"'When,' not 'if,'" Maggie mused.

So days, weeks passed in this uneasy, nervous tension, wound up so tight it could snap.

"And now, news from the scouts."

Every day, the wastelanders marched closer and closer to war.

"Cottonwood Cove has been stormed by a small band of mercenaries paid for by the NCR. They don't have enough troops to hold it, but the Legion's been effectively cut off from its western slave trade through the Mojave. One of the mercenaries involved, according to hearsay, is the Courier that had been shot in the head."

Always with the Courier in the center of things. He was of Chinese descent, which made him very distinct this far east. After the ethnic cleansing of Old World America during the Sino-American War, there were  _ very _ few people left on the continent who could claim ancestry from one of the world's oldest cultures. He was an old hand in the courier game with an unpronounceable legal name inherited from across the sea. Since no one could guess the pronunciation from the way it was written, as Chinese romanization was not friendly to the Western eye, he went by - simply - Six. 

"Nelson has been reclaimed by the NCR. With that, the Colorado river marks a hard border between New Vegas and the Legion. They say a Courier was instrumental in deciding the flow of the battle.  _ The _ Courier."

Maybe the brain injury had given him superpowers. Arcade wouldn't put it past the mutants, considering they also had specimens with completely flayed skin that could survive for hundreds of years left to their own devices and hulking beasts touched by FEV capable of going toe-to-toe with a soldier in power armor. 

"Our scouts have confirmed that Primm's new sheriff is a protectron. Why they elected a robot is beyond me, but I understand some of you young'uns were partially raised by something you call Nanabot, so maybe you'll understand better than I can."

A few chuckles at that joke. All threaded with nervous tension, all grateful there was no worse news that day.

"Robert House is dead. A scout secured a copy of his obituary."

That sentence drove a spike of dread through the cafeteria so heavy it was tangible. Robert House, New Vegas's autocrat, the man they had considered approaching for an alliance if indeed he was  _ the _ Robert House, pre-war oligarch, was dead. Yet another symbol of America from before the war was gone...who was the one who had taken them?

Well, the answer was obvious, wasn't it? It was that Courier, that enigma, Six. A scout had caught a glimpse of him from afar.

"Now, Arcade?" Ruth asked.

"Not yet," he said.

And so the scouting reports continued.

The Courier and a vengeful NCR First Recon sniper defended Bitter Springs from a Legion attack. They stormed Fortification Hill and killed Caesar in his own tent. The Brotherhood began peeking their rusty helms out of Hidden Valley, killing a small outpost of Followers. A rocket, perhaps due to malfunction after years of neglect, was fired out of the old RepCONN test site. A bloody fight in Freeside between locals and NCR refugees was narrowly avoided. The sharecropper farms were abandoned and left fallow because they couldn't meet their quota. The President of the NCR visited, and old-timers called for vengeance, blood, held in check only by the knowledge that the NCR senate was a multi-headed hydra, and it was not worth blowing their cover over a single president, who could be replaced at a moment's notice.

And finally, fate convened atop Hoover Dam, heralded by the artillery of a B-12 Bomber, the drums of war pounded by the sound of Brotherhood armor against concrete, and it looked like the NCR would win the day…

...Except they didn't.

Neither did the Legion.

It was madness, really. They couldn't believe their ears. New Vegas had been seized neither by the Bear nor the Bull, but instead by a lone man and an army of robots, who had proclaimed himself autocrat and, just like that, squeezed shut the pipes leading from Mead to California.

"New Vegas for New Vegas," he said on the radio, the first time any of them had ever heard his voice. "A place to start fresh."

"What about now, Arcade?" Ruth asked. "Now that the world's gone to shit? Again?"

"Not yet."

One day, about a month after Hoover Dam fell to an independent force, the end came.

"Now?" Ruth asked.

"Now."

* * *

"For his traitorous actions," Moreno's voice blasted through the intercom, just barely peaking above the roar of the crowd, of his own heartbeat pounding in his ears as Arcade ran for the exit in the Deathclaw tunnels, "for his treasonous sedition, for his betrayal of all that we are and stand for, for his betrayal of America, we sentence Judah Kreger to death by firing squad!"

The end had been heralded by a single messenger bearing a simple executive order. "Take New Vegas or die trying," the main force said.

Or, to be more accurate, "take New Vegas. Die trying."

Those who survived, should New Vegas fall, would be re-integrated into the Enclave. Those who refused, those who deserted, those who were young and had no desire to participate in a suicide mission, would be executed. It was more than what a pack of traitors deserved, honestly. It was fair. Worst of all, it was  _ clever - _ because if they'd ordered this sect's death directly, maybe that'd be enough to get them all to abandon the Enclave name. No one was a greater threat to the Enclave than the Enclave. However, neither could they simply accept a group that had been led by a man who'd assassinated his own CO. Giving the sect a "test of loyalty," as they called it, was an elegant little solution.  


If their sect died at the hands of New Vegas, that would be ideal, as they'd damage the Courier's forces enough for the main force to clean up. If their sect erupted into civil unrest and they killed each other, that was fine, too. The worst outcome for the main branch would be if their little sect took up arms and defected as a united force...and now there was no way that would come to pass.

Arcade's hands were shaking. The roar of the fervent loyalists, the wails of the children panicking and lost, they echoed down the dark grey halls, the blasted-out stone cavern, like the world had gone mad. 

They had one hope, and that was joining hands with the mutants. If Arcade could secure them a new place to live, a new purpose, link hands with a group powerful enough such that they could survive anything thrown their way, perhaps his family would see reason. The Legion was insane, the tribals up north were useless and too far away, and the NCR wanted them dead on sight. That left only Six, a man who had proven incapable of reining New Vegas in, but who had promised freedom and new beginnings and thrown open his doors.

Arcade would have to believe in that. It was either believe or die. 

The front door was guarded by Genevieve in her sutured suit of power armor, and this door, leading out through the egg cave, was kept locked shut at all times.

Unless someone had a key.  _ The _ key.

Arcade's hands were shaking. He dropped the FOB as he pulled it out of his pocket, the clatter of it as loud as a nuclear blast, and he cursed himself as he bent down and scrabbled at the cold steel grate for it. He recovered it before it was lost between the bars and held it up to the sensor in the lock, and with a loud internal thunk, the door slid open before him, a blast of musty, outdoor air hitting him in the face. 

But before he slipped through, someone grabbed his sleeve, and Arcade nearly had a heart attack; he nearly died on the spot. Standing before him was Calvin Johnson, expression grim and countenance grimmer.

"...Sir," Arcade said. "This isn't - "

"No, it's exactly what I think it is, isn't it?"

Arcade swallowed. "You have to understand - it's madness in there. What the main branch wants us to do, it's madness."

"And it's madness out there. And dangerous. It's no place for someone as soft as you."

"Sir, with all due respect, this is what I've been training for my entire life."

"Your hands are shaking, soldier. You can't shoot straight like that."

Arcade took a deep breath in and out. "Let me go, Johnson."

"Or what?"

Arcade couldn't win a fight against him and they both knew it. However, without his power armor, Arcade had the bigger frame. With all his weight, he pulled Johnson forward, the door closing shut behind them. The two of them were standing in the deathclaw nest, the alphas watching them with wary eyes.

The deathclaws they kept were bred from a strain developed while they were improving their intelligence. The final product of that experiment was  _ too _ intelligent, and all members of that strain had been euthanized, but after the main sect went east, the project was picked up again as a scientist's side hobby. The fruit it had borne were these - still too animalistic and wild to use as soldiers, but capable of recognizing humans as members of the pack provided they regularly socialized with them. 

However, that also meant they were smart enough to recognize inter-pack conflict. Now that Johnson and Arcade were having their stand-off in the nest, the deathclaws wouldn't sit still if it became a fight. At least one of them would not be leaving this cave alive.

They stared at each other, each waiting for the other to make the first move. Brianna had always said that Arcade had a way with animals and small children, and that was what he was banking on. Johnson's gaze was sharp as he challenged Arcade's conviction, his eyes narrowing as he realized Arcade would not budge.

And so, finally, he dropped his hand.

"...You've really grown up, haven't you?" he asked, the sound of bitterness, regret, and amusement all mixed in his voice. "For a moment, I swear you looked just like your father."

His father again. Arcade grit his teeth. 

"I need to get going, Johnson."

"Yes, you do. You're right; it's madness in there. Your contacts are those five who got promoted, right?"

"I can neither confirm nor deny."

"I'll keep Orion's eyes off them," Johnson said. "Coach the kids to keep shy of Orion's discipline, how to lie low and serve without serving. 'Malicious compliance,' I think it's called. I came out here to give you this."

Saying so, he pressed something into Arcade's hand - Arcade couldn't see it in the dim light.

"It was a gift from your mother. But seeing as this might be the last time we ever meet, I want you to have it."

"...Thank you," Arcade said, tucking it into his pocket. 

"Now get going, kid," Johnson said. "I'd give you a push, but then Betsy over there might disembowel me. You'll do great. Uh, what would your father say in this situation?  _ Alea jacta est? _ I admit, my Latin is rusty."

Arcade managed a smile at that.  _ "Morituri te salutant." _

Then with one last, long, wistful look at the steel door separating him from his home, Arcade turned and fled into the cold Mojave night.


	2. Chapter 2

_“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she  
_ _With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,  
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,  
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.  
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,  
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” _

* * *

The Mojave was so...vast.

When Arcade saw the sunrise paint the golden sand in hues of pink and orange and yellow, when he felt the wind on his skin and soft earth beneath his feet, even if they were miserably soaked from crossing the Colorado, even if he was bedraggled and weary from sneaking past the border by climbing up cliff faces with a hand on his stealth boy, he was so overcome by the vastness and majesty and beauty of it all that he nearly teared up behind his glasses, holding back only because he couldn't afford to waste water in this harsh environment, which was harsh before the war and infinitely harsher now.

None of their painted murals could compare, nor could their films in black-and-white. This was the first time he'd seen the sky in twenty years. Somehow, he'd forgotten just how wide it really was, and he got dizzy craning his neck to look at it, to watch the soft, white clouds drifting by. It was almost enough to make a man forget that they'd destroyed this planet once already, something Arcade could never forgive, even moreso now that he saw, remembered, how beautiful it really was. He wondered how the wastelanders on the surface could even waste their time with such petty, trifling wars, when above them and all around them was such insane beauty - but then, he thought, bitterly, the ancient humans of old had wasted their time with war, too. Hell, even contemporary humans couldn't get enough of it.

The second thing he realized was that the sun was a very dangerous enemy, and he'd severely underestimated it. By the time he reached the areas surrounding the Strip, a good two days' journey, he was burnt pink. Devin had warned him explicitly about exactly this, so he _had_ packed sunscreen and salve, but even that was not enough to save him.

The third thing was surprise at just how normal mutants looked, if sun-shrivelled and dusty. They looked like people, talked like people, and gave his pink flesh sad, sympathetic looks like people. One of the children in tattered clothes roaming Freeside had come up to him and wordlessly passed a wilty aloe vera leaf into his hands. He had some extremely mixed feelings about being pitied to that extent.

The mutants of the New Vegas wastes primarily traded in bottlecaps. The Legion wasn't very popular, so while their money was good, anyone who used it and wasn't explicitly a caravaneer enjoying safe Legion routes was looked upon with extreme suspicion. Meanwhile, the NCR's money was difficult to trust, being paper backed by an unstable water standard. While his sect was more than capable of reproducing it, the NCR somehow had the sense to use serial numbers, and it had been decided that the slim chance of being caught with counterfeits made that gamble too high a price to pay.

So, instead, they'd had to whip up a bottlecap press and a device that artificially aged and weathered them. Without the ability to carbon date the caps they made, no one in the wasteland would know the difference, and since the whole bottlecap currency thing was ridiculous and stupid anyway, they weren't exactly worried about crashing the economy with their unlimited printing. So at least for a couple months, Arcade didn't need to worry about living expenses, even after paying for the passport needed to enter the Strip proper.

Everything about these mutant settlements was equal parts fascinating and terrifying. He'd imagined them in his head many times, based on black-and-white photos taken by scouts, word-of-mouth, and what few memories he had as a child before they went into lockdown. The Strip was even more impressive, a genuine Pre-War relic preserved as close to how it originally appeared as was even possible, sans all the terrifying robots patrolling the streets. 

He was safest from scouts from his own base in here. No one wanted to get _this_ physically close to the Lucky 38, in which the Courier had entrenched himself. For Arcade, attracting the Courier's attention was the whole point, so it worked out well for him. 

He'd heard that a vault had been converted into a hotel, and, already feeling homesick, he'd checked himself in. The lady at the counter seemed to pick up that he'd also lived in a vault(-adjacent structure) for most of his life (was it his tender, pink skin that gave it away?) and desperately tried to make small talk with him as a result. She really did seem quite nice - likely would have been a citizen, given any other timeline - but the moment her questions turned to where he'd come from and the circumstances of his upbringing, he'd excused himself as quickly as possible and retired into his room.

Frankly, he didn't know how much he'd missed the din of a whole barracks' worth of echoed snoring until it was gone. It was either that or the dawning realization that he was so, so dead at even the slightest screw-up that kept him tossing and turning all night. 

This new world the mutants had built for themselves...he was a bit ashamed to admit it, but his major impression was that it was filthy. A layer of grime and dust had settled, over the past 200 years, on practically every structure. The Strip was beautiful, but it must have been so much more beautiful before the bombs dropped. Even though the buildings still in working order were polished and pretty, they had broken lights and neighbors with crumbling walls. And across from his own hotel was the silent, hastily-abandoned NCR embassy, a lonely flag emblazoned with the two-headed bear still flapping in the wind.

It also smelled absolutely terrible, although that was easy to adjust to. What was much more difficult was the food - even the stuff served at the vault hotel seemed to be harboring a grudge against the Enclave. Devin had, once more, warned him of this explicitly, so he'd brought along some antacids and laxatives, and they didn't help even a little. So that was a very entertaining and productive adjustment period.

The reason he was focusing so much on trivialities like this was because he was dreading his actual missive. They had five years before the main force arrived in which to strike. Even at his most hotheaded, Orion would not march in without a plan, which would definitely be at least a year in the making in order to account for their sheer lack of personnel, so he had...time. But even so, the deadline loomed, and he needed to move fast. One way or another, he needed to come into contact with the Courier.

Find and talk to New Vegas's most important person, preferably alone. Don't get shot and killed immediately. Don't get shot and killed after exposing your true identity. Don't get shot and killed after revealing why you're even out here in the first place and that everyone is doomed. Easy as a neo-lobotomy.

But maybe Arcade shouldn't have stressed. Or maybe he should have stripped off all his clothes and gone running for the hills; either way, the opportunity practically dropped itself into his lap.

And by that, he meant that he'd asked the girl at the hotel counter how one might go about meeting with Six, and she'd handed him a flier that was due to go up later that night, advertising that Six was looking to hire a financial advisor.

Several of the words had been misspelled. The listed requirements literally included the phrase "spies need not apply." And in the corner had been a crudely-drawn cowboy making a thumbs-up gesture and a wink. 

Arcade was filled with a deep sense of concern for the region at large, as one would feel when they caught a child eating glue.

But there was no time like the present, and the more Arcade hesitated, the more likely he was to psych himself out of it. So, making sure that his most important items were hidden away such that, should he die here, Devin could retrieve his black box, Arcade left for the towering Lucky 38, ushered inside by the robots at the door when he showed them his flier.

* * *

The inside of the Lucky 38 was creepy - it took Arcade a moment to figure out why, since it was incredibly well-preserved and the interior designer had done a good job of making it cosy - and he realized that it was because it was a casino with no gamblers. He felt like he oughtn't be here, like he was illicitly sneaking into the library after dark.

He was ushered to a seat at one of the blackjack tables and told to wait. And he did. At least this place didn't have prying eyes, if one discounted the dozens of securitrons patrolling the grounds.

Eventually, the elevator in the middle of the floor opened, and out stepped a man in a brown duster that reached his shins, with one gun on his hip and another strapped to his back, and a cowboy hat that he removed and set down on the table between them. To either side of him was a robot, and behind them crawled several more, so at least he wasn't coming out to meet dubious people without backup in case things went ugly. All the same, Arcade was extremely surprised that Six himself _did_ show up to conduct the interview in person. And it _was_ Six; his skin was yellow-toned and his hair was a raven black. He didn't seem like he shaved with any regularity, but his beard was stubbly, casting a shadow across his jaw.

But what struck Arcade most about this man was that he seemed _friendly._ He possessed some charm or homeliness that immediately set Arcade at ease despite himself. 

"Hello, I'm Six," he said, holding out his hand to shake. It was firm and warm even through Arcade's black leather gloves. "Well, Xiaoqing Liu. But no one can pronounce it right, so Six is fine."

"Arcade Gannon," Arcade introduced himself right back. "It's good to meet you, Six."

Six gave him a smile. "So you're here for the accountin' job?"

Arcade glanced nervously around the room. If he said no, Six might kick him out, so "yes," he answered instead.

"Good, good. So, uh, pardon me if this isn't the smoothest of interviews, but I ain't exactly experienced in this field." Six pulled out a clipboard, scanned the writing, and cleared his throat. "Okay, basic math test. Emily says this'll weed out most of our applicants. What's 135 + 67? If you need a pencil and paper - "

"202."

"Huh. Okay, 132 x 73."

"9636."

"Wow, you're fast. Okay, what's the derivative of the following. Let's see...six-X with a little three up top next to it plus nine-X minus ten. Even I can't do this one, so - "

"18x2 \+ 9."

If it was just questions like this, that was easy. Six whistled, impressed, which was probably a good sign. Bad for New Vegas, whose de facto ruler apparently struggled with basic mental math, but good for Arcade. Six flipped the page over.

"Okay, now for some basic economic theory - or so Cass and Emily say, anyway. What's the relationship between supply and demand?"

"Inverse. The point at which the two graphs meet for any given product is the market price."

Six nodded. "What's GDP?"

"Gross Domestic Product. A measure of the market value of all the goods and services a country produces in a specific time period, often used as one way to measure a country's wealth."

"Wow, you're even teaching me something. Down here it just says 'gross domestic product,' so I have no idea how true the rest of that was, but I'll take your word for it. What's comparative advantage?"

"The ability for a group or individual to carry out a specific economic activity better or more easily than others."

Six nodded. "Six for six so far, huh? When Emily handed me this test, she said she expected only a handful of people would be able to pass. Alright, we can get to the interview proper, then. Sorry about that."

"No, don't be," Arcade said, genuinely worried. "I was expecting the screening process to be harder, actually."

Six laughed. "Well, Emily said it should be, too, but frankly, I don't put too much stock into book learnin'."

That did nothing to assuage Arcade's concerns. He bit his tongue to keep himself from saying so. "I see."

"Do you have any relevant experience?"

"I...was trained my whole life to inherit the reins of administration," Arcade said. Six nodded. 

"So, ever work with a caravan, a company, or…"

"I'm afraid not." Arcade said. "I _did_ work for the government."

Six glanced up. "NCR?"

"Er…"

"Legion?"

Arcade coughed. "United States."

"Huh." He looked Arcade over. "Guess you seem like a vault-type. Did admin for one of those, then? I guess that'd count."

He flipped to the next page. "Have you ever committed a crime against New Vegas? And if so, what?"

"Not besides exist."

Six chuckled. "Have you ever committed a crime against the NCR, and if so, what?"

"Well, I was _born,"_ Arcade said. "Other than that, no."

"Ain't that just the way," Six laughed. "Okay, so what would you say your greatest skills are?"

It hit Arcade now that he was being _interviewed_ to be put in charge of a large chunk of New Vegas's finances, and that the interview had so far consisted of a grade-school math and macroeconomics exam and was otherwise proceeding exactly as though he were looking to enter the kitchen of a fast food restaurant. Six looked up at him.

"Arcade? Y'alright, there?"

"Yes, I'm...fine," Arcade said. He straightened his back, realizing that there was no way any mutant could possibly, _possibly_ be more qualified for the job than he was. Unless the hiring process was corrupt, which he couldn't rule out. But still.

"I'm extremely well-educated," he said, stating the barebone facts. "Not only in economic theory, but political, social, psychological, and medical. We had extensive libraries back home, you see. And since I had many younger siblings, I'm experienced with teaching and had no choice but to grow _infinite_ levels of patience."

"Uh-huh," Six said. "Okay, and what would you say are your greatest weaknesses?"

"Close-quarters combat." Arcade's mouth quirked up when Six let out a small snort. He was easy to make laugh - a comfortable person to talk to, Arcade thought again. "Joking. I've been told that I can be insufferable. Probably a leftover from my babysitting days. I have a tendency to assume the role of a parent if nobody else is around to provide."

"Not terrible," Six said to himself. "Okay, a few hypothetical questions here. So say you've got a train track with a split in it. A train is coming and is about to run over five people. However, you can flip a switch and let it hit only one person, but doing that makes you directly responsible for that person's death. Do you flip the switch?"

First entry-level math and economics; now entry-level ethics. He'd given this exact quiz to the 8-13 bracket just a few days ago. Might as well have some fun with it.

"Is there any way to prevent the train from hitting anybody? Such as rescuing them or otherwise stopping the train?"

Six clearly wasn't prepared to be counter-quizzed. "Uh, I don't think so."

"Is there any moral worth we can assign to the potential victims? For example, are the five people on the tracks all murderers and criminals? Is the single person a charitable, upstanding citizen? Maybe a philanthropist or a doctor?"

"Uh…"

Arcade leaned in. "Does it matter?"

Six thought about it. "Y'know, that's a tough question. I don't feel comfortable measurin' human life like that. Whether a person was good or bad, they all can change, and they all have a right to live and be allowed to change."

Six was a good person, Arcade decided. He didn't think a world leader had the luxury of not quantifying human life, but he was still glad that New Vegas's dictator could feel that way. 

"Well, assuming all things are equal," he finally answered, "then yes, I'll pull the lever. This is a question that asks if you're willing to save lives at the cost of being personally responsible for ending one. As grim as it is to say it, I'm prepared to make that choice."

Six nodded. "I see, I see. Interesting answer. You're hired."

Arcade blinked. "What?"

"I said, you're hired."

"Wait, that couldn't have been the whole interview - "

Six laughed. "It wasn't. But I've got a hunch for this sort of thing, you know? A sixth sense. I never lose at blackjack. You want me to keep going, or do you want the job?"

Oh, New Vegas was _doomed._ That being the case, there was no use beating around the bush. Arcade sighed long and hard into his arms.

"Job, please." 

"Okay."

"What if I told you I'm from the Enclave, and we're all laser bait unless we work together?"

Six's eyebrows raised. He'd gotten halfway out of his seat, and that gave him enough pause to lower himself back in. "Then I'd ask why you're suddenly pullin' my leg like this. The Enclave disappeared right before I was born, and no one's seen hide nor hair of 'em since."

"If I reach into my jacket - slowly - to show you my papers, will I get shot?"

Six looked around at the Securitrons, which only looked back at him, awaiting his order. "No."

So Arcade did, pulling on his lapel so he could reach for the internal pocket. From out of it he pulled a small, navy blue booklet, the same size and shape as a US passport of old (he'd heard they were made out of recycled passports, once upon a time), and opened it to the first page. On it was his photo and basic information - birth date, eye color, height, weight - and embedded into the cover was a small data crystal, another FOB - this one only given archivist and common soldier permissions - next to a proud emblem stamped in black ink of a capital E surrounded by fourteen stars.

Six looked long and hard at it, jaw clenching. Most of the rest of the booklet was blank - where it normally tracked a soldier's tours and exits and entries from a base, in Arcade's there were only a couple lines. First, that he had been born in Navarro in 2246, that he had _left_ Navarro in 2251, and - this Arcade had blotted out with ink before he'd left the compound - that he'd arrived at the White Rock Canyon bunker in 2256 and hadn't left since.

On the very back page was a DNA sample encased in glass. A relic from a bygone era, but, like many things in the Enclave, a feature they still insisted on using. Arcade supposed it was comfort, if cold, to know that there was a chance his DNA would survive without him, to be soullessly used in future artificial wombs.

"Okay," Six said, noticeably more guarded as he handed Arcade his papers back. "Now you've got my interest piqued. What are you doin' all the way out in New Vegas?"

This was it. Make it or break it time. 

"Six...please let me - let _us -_ be useful to you."

* * *

The Courier's inner circle was so much a tiger's den that Arcade considered whether or not it'd be smarter, or at least kinder to himself, to put a bullet in his own brain.

An NCR merchant, a man in the back with a sniper rifle and red First Recon beret, a ghoul in ghastly flesh tatters wearing a jumpsuit with indeterminate stains, a woman with fiery red hair and the Followers symbol emblazoned on her shoulder, and a sad-looking girl in tattered brown robes, a pneumatic gauntlet on her fist. All of them stared up at him with sharp, wary eyes, and Arcade struggled to keep up his confident façade. Mutants, he heard, were much like deathclaws - they could smell fear. You had to be confident when dealing with them, or else you'd be marked as a prey animal and hunted down.

"...Hello," Arcade said, after Six nudged him in the ribs. "My name is Arcade Gannon. As you've probably already heard from Six, I'm a representative from a rogue Enclave sect that's been living here for about 25 years. It's...a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

The merchant took a long drink from her whiskey bottle, slamming it down on the table. "Enclave, huh? Never thought I'd see one of those fuckers with my own eyes."

Arcade's grin tightened. "I assure you, we'd have preferred to stay hidden as well. Unfortunately, our straits are dire - as are yours. I come completely in peace, because I'm sure 'mutual destruction' is the last thing any of us wants."

She raised an eyebrow. "That a threat?"

"No," he said, panicking slightly. "Just...the situation that we find ourselves in."

The merchant narrowed her eyes and the Follower took over, her arms folded and expression stiff.

"Six gave us the story," Emily said. "The problem is, your reputation precedes you. There isn't anyone west of the Colorado who doesn't know that the Enclave tried to kill us all."

"Well - "

"I'm from Arroyo," Emily interrupted. "My father was the Chosen One."

"My old man travelled with him," Cass volunteered.

Arcade paled. Everyone in the Enclave spoke about the Chosen One the way the mutants spoke about the Enclave.

"I…" Arcade took a deep breath in and out. Steady, Arcade; you have to be calm under pressure. "I can't speak for anyone else in my sect, but I think your kind has just as much right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as mine."

Emily raised an eyebrow. "' _Your_ kind'?"

Arcade folded his arms. "From what I understand, wastelanders have an issue being grouped up with the Enclave, too. If you heard the story from Six, then you know that we can't afford to fight each other. The main force is coming, and if you end up in combat with my sect, you'll be too weak to resist them."

"Fine," Emily said, her tone suggesting that she wasn't fine with it at all. Still, she set the issue aside. "One thing about your story bothers me. Mind if I ask about it?"

"Short of telling you how to infiltrate and destroy us - for reasons I hope are obvious - I'll answer any questions you have."

"You told Six that the older generation was raised with absolute loyalty and devotion to the Enclave, and that's why they're forcing your generation to go through with a suicide attack."

"That's right."

Her gaze was sharp, accusatory. In fact, most of the gazes in this room were sharp. Six actually seemed to be the dullest one here.

"What about you?" She leaned forward. "What reason do we have to believe that you aren't also a brainwashed fascist, and this isn't just some Trojan Horse to trick us into welcoming a battalion into our home?"

That was relieving to hear. It was a question he'd thought they might ask, and so he'd prepared his answer well in advance.

"Because I'll prove to you my sincerity," he said. "I'll help your fledgling nation address its every ailment. I'll help build you up into a fighting force that can take on my sect without suffering devastating losses - even win. I have no choice; I have to put my faith in you, so I will give you every possible advantage. If, at the end of that, you decide to destroy my sect when I give you our location..."

His hands clenched into his clothes. He was making a gamble, he knew...but there was no place better than New Vegas in which to cast the dice.

"...Then so be it. We would have been destroyed either way."

Silence. Poker faces that betrayed nothing on all the dour gazes aimed in his direction. The air in the room was heavy and oppressive, enough to make Arcade feel faint.

Finally, it was the ghoul who spoke up, his gravelly voice tinged with an accent Arcade recognized as Mexican. He wondered if perhaps this ghoul had seen the world before it had been ravaged by war. Apparently, most had.

"Do you know the old name for the city they call Two Sun?" he asked.

It was such an odd, irrelevant question that Arcade hesitated, wondering if it was some sort of trick. "Tucson, you mean?"

The ghoul cracked a smile, or at least Arcade thought it was a smile. He was baring his teeth either way, and it was extremely frightening.

"I think this guy's alright, Six."

* * *

Within a couple days, even just over neutral discussions of budget and policy, Arcade came to understand that he was very much not wanted. This much was to be expected; the Enclave did not garner much love. It still stung, though, because aside from being the bearer of bad news, Arcade had never done anything to slight these people.

Still, they were all in this together, and even if they made no effort to mask their contempt, Arcade could be the bigger person. He was given a room on one of the lower floors of the Lucky 38, a 24/7 guard detail, and was escorted around by another member of the Inner Circle the moment he stepped outside. Usually, it was the sniper, whose expression was hidden behind dark sunglasses even when indoors, but the gun he carried and the scowl he wore perennially really didn't bode well. Less commonly, it was Raul, the ghoul who had vouched for him. That was horrifying for different reasons, although once Arcade got over the fact that Raul looked like an anatomical dummy come to life, he found that Raul was a relatively… 

"Nice" was the wrong word, but Raul really couldn't care less whether Arcade was Enclave or had a third arm growing from his back; he saw that Arcade was genuinely working hard and appeared to be satisfied with that. Which Arcade could appreciate. Raul, he'd learned, was actually a relic from before the war, but all attempts to ask about what life then was like had been met with biting sarcasm and dripping cynicism - he usually liked to retort by asking Arcade about _his_ upbringing - so Arcade hadn't questioned him further. Sometimes he'd mutter stuff under his breath in Spanish, usually griping about his fellow teammates or the pain in his joints, and Arcade simply didn't know how to broach the topic of his fluency in multiple languages.

Cass was an ex-caravaneer, and as a result, Six had her taking care of the budget. Even though she spent much of her time completely drunk, her ledgers were clean and legible, her math precise, and in short order, Arcade had a solid grasp of New Vegas's holdings. She'd done an impressive job keeping everything running, despite her inebriation and clear reluctance to manage casino income, but all New Vegas had _really_ managed in this past month was to stabilize itself and keep the casinos open. Not to diminish the accomplishment, but it wasn't ideal, when so much of the region was otherwise in chaos.

And Jesus Christ, New Vegas had so much money. He'd known House was a capitalist oligarch before the war, of course, but he wasn't ready for exactly how much that _meant._ Compared to all usual standards - the cost of living, the NCR's median salary - they had enough money to _buy_ New Vegas multiple times over.

"Ain't gonna fucking matter when the NCR's trade embargo goes through," Cass said in response. Arcade frowned.

"So they're going to put economic pressure on New Vegas? You're sure about this?"

"If you're asking for hard proof, ain't got any," Cass said. "I just know how the NCR works. What they couldn't get through force, they'll get it through bullying. Don't take a genius...or a roach like you."

"Roach?" Arcade asked.

"Never get called that before?" Cass asked. "S'what you Enclave fuckers are, to most people in the NCR anyways. Heard you got the name 'cuz your power armor looks buggy, insect buggy, and where there's one of you, there's a thousand living under a rock somewhere nearby."

"A 'thousand' is an overstatement…" Arcade winced. It wasn't like they didn't have less-than-savory terms for the wastelanders on the surface. "Noted. I'll keep that in mind."

Cass gave him a long, hard look from behind the bottom of her bottle.

"You can fight." It wasn't a question.

"I received military combat training, yes," Arcade said. "But I'm a non-combatant. I'm useless without my glasses, and for all our advances in technology, they haven't figured out a way to strap them to my face."

"Glue."

Arcade snorted. "You'd think, right?" 

"Ever kill anyone?"

"No. We've been in lockdown aside from scouts and salvagers for the past 25 years; and even if we had the opportunity, I'm in the business of saving lives, not ending them."

"A doctor," Cass said, eyes narrowing. "My old man used to tell me stories about Enclave _doctors._ Even said he'd seen the results of some of their so-called _doctorin',_ and it weren't pretty."

Arcade frowned and set his paper down. "Is there a point you're trying to make, here?"

"Whatsa matter, egghead? Don't like all this poking and prodding?" She grinned at him. "I'm tryin' to figure you out. You aren't exactly what I imagined a roach'd be like."

Arcade gave her a dry look. "Sorry. Should I shout about killing mutants while firing my pistol in the air?"

"It'd be a start."

Arcade sighed and returned to his work. "For what it's worth, wasters aren't exactly how I'd imagined they'd be, either. Fewer teeth. Looks like we've all learned something here today."

He held up a sheet of paper. "Tell me what this expense is."

Cass scooted over, squinting at it. "Oh, that. Every month we send a lump sum down to the Followers in Freeside."

"Followers of the Apocalypse, right?" Arcade asked, just to be sure. He'd heard about them, doctors and educators who volunteered their services for as cheap as they could make them. He felt like they might be trying to patch a sinking ship, but he did respect their ethos and praxis.

"Yeah. Six tries to help 'em out when he can. Their problem's more lack of people than money, though the money doesn't hurt, but the medical supplies they'll be able to buy go away when that embargo hits. He's offered to help 'em out more than that, you know, let them move their HQ down to Vegas, but they're all - " she made a waving motion with her hands as she struggled to find the words. " - Hippies, uh, anarchists and shit, so they don't like the idea of 'belonging' to a government."

 _"Quod cito acquiritur cito perit -_ I can't say it's unwise on their part _._ One of the other girls at the meeting was a Follower, right?" Arcade asked. Their symbol being the Christian cross and all, their labcoats were very distinctive. 

"Yeah, Emily. I can never tell what she's thinking. She's a Follower, so she's trustworthy, but by the same token, maybe she's not. Followers have always had...problems with government. Not that I blame 'em."

Emily, Arcade hadn't seen at all since that first meeting. She seemed like she might even be deliberately avoiding him, since it was clear from the sharp look in her eyes that she'd been completely hostile from the start. Well, her family _was_ from _that_ Arroyo, and her father was _that_ Chosen One, so maybe it couldn't be helped. He hated to admit it, but he wasn't looking forward to working with the Followers. One way or another, it felt like that was going to spell disaster down the line.

As he was thinking this, Cass gave Arcade a funny look. "Careful with that Latin. You say that in front of the wrong wastelander and they'll sock you in the jaw. Legion's not very popular this side of the Colorado."

"I'll keep that in mind," Arcade said. 

"How do you feel about the Legion, anyway?"

"In as few words as possible," Arcade said, the topic not one he particularly enjoyed, "if all members of their army were to be wiped out overnight, we will not have lost anything of value."

Cass barked out a laugh. "You think so too? Lately they've been crawling all up and down our side of the Colorado. We just don't have the robots to spare keeping 'em out. Or anyone else, for that matter. We've got refugees pouring in like water from both east and west."

"Thus, the food crisis I'm looking at?"

"And worse, eventually. The smart move would probably be to sell ourselves out to the NCR before they put the squeeze on us and our property value drops. But Six insists New Vegas has got somethin' special, somethin' he doesn't want fallin' into the hands of the NCR or Legion or… Enclave, I guess."

"Something special…" He didn't see it. Unless Six was talking about Hoover Dam and Lake Mead, which Arcade doubted. If you left those out of the equation, then all New Vegas had was a money sinkhole they called the Strip and a bundle of loose settlements in the bombed-out husks of Pre-War cities. 

Also in front of him was a map with demarcated factions. No matter how he looked at it, the situation was dire. They were already short on food, even with the NCR sharecropper farms restored and smaller farms in Westside just barely unable to support Freeside. This problem was being exacerbated by the day as refugees filed in from all sides. They had no army outside of the Securitrons, who were a powerful defensive unit, but couldn't attack or counterattack, owing to limited signal range. They couldn't even patrol New Vegas's borders, since a single robot made an easy long-range target, and buddying them up would loosen their grasp on the area's most important regions - the dam, the lake, and the Strip.

Most of the Strip's current expenditures went toward food purchased from the NCR, which was sent to the Followers to redistribute. If, indeed, the NCR put an embargo on trade with NV, they'd be looking at a _real_ crisis. It was a smart move for the senate to play, considering how valuable the Dam was, even if there was no public support for a military campaign any longer.

Arcade frowned just thinking about it. Their priority, then, had to be self-sufficiency. They needed both short-term _and_ long-term solutions to their food shortages. He stood, Cass glancing up at him in alarm.

"Fuck, you're tall," she said. "What's up?"

"I need more information," he said, simply. "If the Followers are distributing food, that means they know better than anyone how much food we need. While I'm at it, can you put together a dossier on every caravan and trading route that passes through New Vegas?"

Cass raised an eyebrow. "Got a plan?"

"Not as such. I need the information first."

Cass thought about it. "Well, that's fine. I could do that. Pretty sure I've still got contacts down at the 188. You take care of yourself if you're visiting Freeside; take someone with you. The way you dress and talk, you're just begging to be targeted by pickpockets or thugs."

"Duly noted," Arcade said. "That, uh, sniper, he's still hanging around, right?"

"Boone? Yeah, probably. If you can't find him, just shout his name loud enough and he'll come."

* * *

"Julie Farkas?" Arcade asked, addressing a woman with a spiked mohawk who was currently rifling through some cratefuls of fixer. She snapped upright at the sound of her name, quickly wiping her hands off on her dusty labcoat. 

"Can I help you?"

Arcade held his hand out for her to shake. "Arcade Gannon; I'm Six's new financial advisor. If you have the time, I'd like to ask you some questions about your operations here."

Her eyes flicked from him to Boone standing behind him. He seemed to be a familiar face, since she didn't ask for any more proof of identity than that, taking his hand.

"Pleasure to meet you. Six has been our benefactor, so we'd be happy to answer any questions you might have."

She said that, but she was clearly on guard, lending credence to Cass saying the Followers had issues with governance. 

The Old Mormon Fort, where they'd taken over operations, was honestly one of the worse parts of Freeside Arcade had seen, although, admittedly, he'd avoided the "bad" parts of town. The whole place stank like a festering wound, and hastily-constructed tents were clearly at full capacity. Those who weren't wearing white doctor's coats - and even some who were - limped in and out in terrible condition. In corners and huddled in the shadows of the wall were addicts with clear symptoms of withdrawal. It was a really miserable place, and Arcade felt genuinely a little sick to his stomach to see it concentrated so thickly when he was unable to help. His time was a scarce resource, best spent assuaging the crises that had caused the current state of affairs...which was what he had come here to do, he reminded himself, turning away. 

They entered one of the towers, the bottom floor having been converted into a makeshift OR. It definitely wasn't sanitary, but it was better than open-air, and bottles of isopropyl alcohol lining the counters and shelves at least meant they tried to sanitize what they could. 

The top floor was Julie's quarters, medical texts lining one wall, desk covered in paperwork shoved up against the other. There were only two chairs in this room, she realized too late, but Boone declined to sit, propping himself up against the wall, leaving them to stare at each other across the desk.

Arcade cleared his throat and began. "Sorry to trouble you, if you're busy."

"Not at all. Well, not that I'm not busy, but anything Six has to say takes priority."

"I'll get down to business, then," Arcade said. "My primary concern is addressing the food shortage as soon as possible. I heard you've been put in charge of distributing what the Strip purchases from the NCR, so I'd like your perspective on what can be done, what the demand is and will be in the near future, and any documentation you'd be willing to share. At this point, the more information, the better."

Julie nodded, some of the tension leaving her shoulders when she heard that this wasn't some attempt to purchase or absorb the Followers. "Absolutely; we'll lend you our full support. Have you heard that they're trying to pass an embargo on trade to New Vegas?"

"I've heard speculation, but the way you've phrased it makes it sound more concrete than that."

"We've received word from the Boneyard, where most of our facilities are located. Trade with New Vegas is very lucrative, so it's being fought and filibustered, but there will likely be some restrictions within three months, two at the earliest."

A hard deadline to pull things together by. Arcade nodded. "That's terrible, but not wholly unexpected. Since we can't affect that outcome without unnecessarily ceding ground to the NCR, we should focus on what we can change."

Julie smiled. "Right. Well, the good news is that we do have documentation on our food distribution, and one of our programmers, Emily Ortal, has put together projections for the near future. I can have someone deliver those to you by the end of the day."

That was a major relief. "Fantastic."

"As for your other request, what can be done…" She frowned as she thought about it. "In the long-term, we need more dedicated farms. The shores directly surrounding Lake Mead would be ideal, since it's so close to the water, but I understand it's a security risk to let people that close to the Dam. Still, the north is probably the best place to establish farmland, since it's currently sitting empty and it's protected by mountains, the Strip, and the Securitrons at the Dam on most sides. Problem is, establishing new farms up that way is going to take time - time that we don't have."

Arcade nodded, thoughtfully. "Do you have any short-term solutions in mind?"

Julie let out a long sigh. "If we did, we'd have told Six already. What I _can_ tell you is that the Legion will probably try to offer trade when they see the NCR cutting you off. That's how they operate - they take advantage of weakness, offer a solution, and then use that offer to screw their victims over. Desperate times might call for desperate measures, and preventing people from starving might be a big enough motivator that trade with the Legion is the only way out, but just know that it's a monkey's paw."

"Of course. The goal is self-sufficiency, so ideally it won't come to that."

Julie gave him a smile. "Sorry we can't be of more help."

"No, this is plenty. Figuring out where would be the best to start farming isn't something I can do from the ivory tower." He leaned forward. "Also, I want to ask this free of affiliation from Six. I heard that you've turned down offers to move your headquarters here - can I ask why?"

Julie was immediately on guard again. "Why do you ask?"

"Because simply having the Followers around is a massive boon. There's nothing but benefits even if you and our government never interact at all - in fact, you're probably capable of doing the most good the less we try to limit your actions."

Not that they could tolerate the Followers roaming free forever, if they wanted their governance to stay strong and stable. He didn't say that part aloud, though. At this point in time, New Vegas needed all the help it could get, and even in the hypothetical future where they needed the Followers to toe the line, it was still entirely true that even the best possible system of governance would still sacrifice the efficacy of the Followers if the Followers were brought to heel. It was a deeply unfortunate reality, one of the paradoxes of the human condition that allowed the best of intentions to result in unmitigated disaster.

Julie's smile turned bitter. "Wish the NCR saw it that way."

"So there are tensions there after all."

"We're a group that's dedicated to doing good," Julie said. "I can't speak for everyone, and I don't necessarily agree with any given member's personal views, but oftentimes 'doing good' doesn't mean 'doing what's lawful.' As a result, we're not popular with the government, and they've been doing their damndest to smear our reputation and steal our talent. The NCR's government is full of private interests, and often, they get in the way of the good of the people. Ironic, isn't it? The good of the people is supposed to be what democracy's about."

"And it is, when it's working as intended," Arcade agreed. "I give the NCR points for trying, but they've certainly erred if they're making things harder for the Followers. The cheap power they'd earn isn't worth what the Followers provide."

"Not a fan of the Republic, huh?" Julie said, with a wry grin. "To answer your question, it's one part logistics, one part politics, one part uncertainty. The Divide and Big MT mean that moving our operation to New Vegas necessitates taking a long way around. It's a migration that the NCR won't tolerate, especially after the embargo. They can't exactly leech talent and resources from us if we escape their grasp, and we have so much...stuff that they'll definitely catch on if we start packing up. Secondly, most people stationed in New Vegas know that Six has our backs and will fully allow us to come on our own terms, but people back home are less sure. He _is_ technically a dictator, and we tend to be communists, socialists, and anarchists, so some are wary of New Vegas on principle. We don't really have a solid leadership structure, but there's a council in the Boneyard that gets elected every year to manage affairs, and the people on it this year have never been to New Vegas to meet Six for themselves. And finally...I hate to say it, but New Vegas's prospects aren't really something to write home about. There's no real point in moving out here if it's just going to get overrun by the Legion or annexed by the NCR within a few years."

All logically sound arguments. Arcade nodded along.

"So you might consider it if we could prove our prospects of stability and provide the Followers with agreeable terms?"

"We'll _consider_ anything," Julie said. "But that does make it more likely for people to pack up and move. Enough individual members do that, and the whole group might follow suit. The Dam's already a pretty big draw for our engineers, since Six is letting them work on it ever since he kicked the NCR out, but not enough for our teachers, which is what most of us are."

"I see." Arcade smiled brightly at her. "Thank you so much for your time. I can't possibly keep you any longer than this."

"No, the pleasure was all mine. Thanks for hearing me out. Uh, one last thing, actually."

Arcade cocked his head. "Yes?"

"If there's any way you can, you might try creating some jobs. It won't really do anything for the food shortage, but it might help conditions around here in general if people had something more to do than drugs. And you'll need laborers for those farms…"

Not a bad idea. Arcade smiled. The Followers, as expected, were useful. "Of course. I'll see what I can do."

* * *

There was a knock on his door that night as he was reviewing the report Cass had given him - and by "reviewing," he meant "deciphering." From the sounds of it, she'd had a few whiskeys at the drink stand down at the trading post, and her handwriting while drunk was...less than legible.

So, glad for the break, he opened the door to find Emily, the Follower, standing there, staring up at him with her sharp brown eyes. In her hands was a stack of paper - probably the documentation he'd requested.

"Hello," he said, carefully.

Emily studied him for a second longer, then pushed her way inside. Arcade looked after her in concern. "Um - "

She sat herself down in his chair, crossing her legs and arms. "You went down to the Fort today. Julie told me all about it. So you want to buy the Followers?"

Arcade closed the door, slowly. There was hostility in Emily's voice, so Arcade was also on guard. "I made no such offer. Just mentioned it seemed mutually beneficial and asked why the Followers didn't agree."

"Yeah, right. Look, Julie's too...nice to see where this is going, but I'm not. The Followers are a massive resource. Everyone wants a slice of what we have and _doesn't_ want the people who make us up, and I bet you're no different."

Arcade narrowed his eyes. "It's hardly an ulterior motivation if I explicitly represent New Vegas's best interests. Unlike the NCR, I happen to understand that there's no sense in biting the hand that literally feeds our population. It's a better deal for the Followers than the slow suffocation they're looking at."

"Or it's the same deal, different hand." She looked away. "I don't like this. You're from the goddamn _Enclave,_ but everyone's just accepting it like it's not suspicious that the genocidal fascists that tried to kill us all had a change of heart and are trying to help. Aren't we basically handing you our weaknesses on a silver platter?"

"The same could be said of anyone hired into this position," Arcade argued. "What if you'd hired an NCR or Legion spy? I was very up-front about my affiliation."

She turned toward him, suddenly, eyes sharp. "Do you see us as human beings?"

He paused. The answer was no, not really; clearly they were just as sentient as humans, so he'd been dealing with them as such, but the fact was that there were quantifiable differences in DNA, and it wasn't a sure thing that they could produce viable offspring, to say nothing of ghouls. He didn't particularly like the word "mutant," but that was what they were. 

"All who are born on US soil," he finally allowed, "are fully citizens of the United States of America."

Emily snorted derisively at that. "What about Raul? He was born in Mexico."

"Well, it's up to him. At this point, he's been living here for more than a century, and I have the authority to naturalize him on-the-spot."

"And if you don't, what does that make him?"

"A Mexican," Arcade said, dryly. "An illegal immigrant, perhaps, but I don't work immigration."

"Got an answer for everything, huh."

"Isn't that what I was hired for?" Arcade crossed his own arms. "Clearly, this conversation is headed nowhere fast. If all you came here to do was sling baseless accusations, I'll have to ask you to leave."

"Fine," Emily said, with a haughty toss of her hair. "Here are the documents you asked for. I'll go ahead and take my leave."

"Thank you." 

She paused at the door, looking back at him. 

"When are you going to have something to show?"

He was settling back down at his desk, organizing papers.

"...Two days," he said, after a precursory glance. "I'll need tomorrow to organize, finalize, and chase up on information, and then the day after, I will have a plan for you."

"Fine," she said. "I look forward to seeing it."

And with that, she was off.

She was a sharp, sharp person, though he supposed that if anyone had a right to hate him, it was a child of the Chosen One who'd been instrumental in destroying the Oil Rig, whose whole tribe had been captured to use as living test subjects. He sighed into his stack of papers.

Old wounds ran deep. And some of the scars he himself carried came from America before the bombs dropped, America that had haunted and shadowed him like a vengeful ghost all his life. He felt its cold, clammy hands on his shoulders even now, as he looked through the reports and wondered if there was anything left of it to save.

* * *

They were all gathered together once more, Arcade at the front of the room. Six was sitting closest to him on one side, Cass on the other; the rest of them had taken distance from him. Emily with crossed arms, Raul disinterestedly half-asleep on the table, Boone...staring at him from the back wall, and the last member he'd yet to really talk to staring listlessly out the window.

Arcade had spent the morning psyching himself up for this. He was really about to make or break his career, and to survive the pressure, he'd slipped into his military training, feet at shoulder width and hands clasped behind his back.

"Good morning," he said, the harshness in his voice a little surprising even to him. He cleared his throat and hoped it'd go away. "As we're all aware, there is a food shortage in New Vegas, and soon the NCR will pass a trade embargo, exacerbating the problem. As a result, I've decided to prioritize addressing the food problem, and have come up with several plans for us to discuss. Ideally, we'll be working on them at the same time, as some are short-term solutions and others are long-term solutions with no immediate short-term return."

So far, everyone (mostly) seemed to be listening along. Arcade moved into the first order of business.

"After looking through the information I asked Cass to gather for me with regard to trade routes and caravans passing through New Vegas, I believe our first, easiest plan of action will be to secure a trade caravan of our own."

"To trade with who?" Cass asked. "Cuz the NCR - "

"Salt Lake City," Arcade answered. On a chalkboard he'd requested was plastered a map of the western half of the continent. He pointed to a red X he'd drawn on the northern border of New Vegas. "Currently, there exists a caravan called Happy Trails that does not do trade with New Vegas itself, avoiding the ire of Crimson Caravan, which is much bigger and has been guilty of using violent methods to get its way. However, it uses a passage through New Vegas to bypass the I-80, which is currently overrun with raiders."

"Oh, yeah, I know them," Six said. "I helped them secure that route in the first place. There's friendly tribals up that way, too."

Well, considering how much the Courier was involved with other problems in the Mojave, perhaps it wasn't altogether surprising that he'd been involved with the Happy Trails Caravan Company, either.

"The plan is twofold," Arcade continued. "First, we ensure that the I-80 remains an obstacle for the NCR. During the Hoover Dam campaign, they lost most of their military forces to New Vegas, which is what allowed the raiders to move in in the first place. Now that they've called their forces home, it won't be long before they clear out that stretch of road again. So our first order of business is to 'lose' a caravan's worth of weapons and armor along the I-80, effectively making the raiders there a much more lasting problem for the NCR. Second, the Happy Trails Caravan Company is surviving purely off the goodwill of Vegas. If we threaten to close off their only real trading route, they'll have no choice but to sell at whatever price we demand. New Vegas needs to acquire its own caravan as soon as possible, and it's far more efficient to purchase one that already has all the assets we need - contacts, brahmin, caravaneers."

"Question."

Arcade looked up. "Yes, Cass?"

"What do you mean, 'lose a caravan's worth?'"

Arcade felt himself falter. He wasn't very happy with what he was about to say, either, but… 

"We send what looks like a caravan up north. It's lightly guarded and flashily decorated, pure bait for the raiders. We load it up with guns, ammo, and armor."

Cass's jaw clenched. "And the caravaneers?"

"Dead, ideally. We don't want the NCR to know that this was done on purpose. Whatever measures we can take to make it look like a blunder of incompetence, we should take."

"Arcade," Six said. Cass looked pissed. _Six_ looked pissed. Arcade didn't even need to look at Emily to see what Emily thought. He took a deep breath in and out before answering.

"Yes, Six?"

"I ain't a fan of this plan."

"I didn't think you would be," Arcade admitted. "I - "

"It's not right to gamble with human lives like that."

No, it really wasn't.

"Unfortunately, we don't have the luxury not to. I'm very sorry to say, Six, but you are a _country_ now, and _every single decision you make_ gambles with human lives. Every time you leave this building, you gamble with the lives of New Vegas, Six, because your assassination would be enough to destabilize the whole country, and I wouldn't be surprised if the NCR is plotting exactly that. If we secure the caravan for full price, those are expenses we could be using to pay for more food. If we don't do anything to prevent the NCR from retaking the I-80, they're a much bigger, wealthier, and more powerful trading partner than we are, and it's entirely possible that they'll simply price us out of Salt Lake City - not unless we can secure exclusive deals first. To do that, we'll need to buy as much time as we can. I…"

Another deep breath in and out. Calm, Arcade. The mutants cared deeply about whether or not you respected their humanity.

"I would also prefer not to waste lives," he said. "But the NCR is not so kind. Do you understand what their trade embargo means, Six? People will be starving in the street. The NCR is _already_ planning to leverage lives for material gain. That is the playing field we find ourselves on."

He paused.

"Unless you want to do trade with the Legion. I'm trying to give us other options."

Six and Cass were still clearly upset, but Six breathed in long and hard through his nose. His gaze was dour, but even.

"You're a real politician, huh," he said. Arcade couldn't deny it. "That's fine. Much as I hate to admit it, that's what we need right now. That being the case, Arcade, are there any parts of this plan open to discussion?"

Arcade breathed a sigh of relief. "Yes. The version I'm presenting today is the plan's most efficient form, but if any of you have suggestions, the most vital points are that, one, we secure a caravan, and two, we complicate trade along the I-80 for the NCR. For example, if you insist on paying full price for the caravan, without any pressuring, you'd probably earn more trust from your new employees. At the same time, the downside is we lose funds that could be used elsewhere. It's a zero-sum game, unfortunately; wherever we gain, we lose."

"What if we just asked them to come over?" Six asked. "With the trade embargo on its way, they might just relocate if we ask."

It was entirely possible. However… 

"I'd advise against it," Arcade said. "New Vegas, compared to its neighbors, is miniscule, and it's unlikely that that will change in the near future, given your complete lack of offensive options. Therefore, you need a strong government if you hope to compete with your neighbors. It's not a bad idea to have private caravans operating out of New Vegas someday, but I believe it's in New Vegas's best interest to invest in one that operates entirely under your thumb. One day, it might become an official branch governing imports and exports. Even if not, it'll be a breeding ground for talent."

He was ready to bring up the risk of the caravan using New Vegas's reliance upon it as leverage to exert influence over the government, or to sell favors to the NCR, but it seemed like his explanation was adequate.

Six nodded, carefully. "Alright, that's fair enough. I'd like to purchase them for a fair price, then. I don't want New Vegas to be known for being cutthroat."

Arcade nodded. "That tradeoff is more than reasonable."

"And about the shipment to the I-80. The important part is we get the weapons to the raiders there, right?"

"Right, although there's a secondary benefit in that the more incompetent New Vegas appears, the less effort the NCR will put into taking us. We want to, for as long as we can, appear as though we can't wipe our own - behinds."

"Right," Six nodded. "All the same, it doesn't sit right with me…"

"Hey, boss," Raul piped up, lazily cracking an eye open. "What if we had the Khans pretend to steal from us on their way out? Sounds like this is a bother to the NCR, which is right up their alley."

Arcade tilted his head. "Khans? As in, the raider group that produces drugs?"

"Yeah," Six said, thoughtfully. "I talked them outta an alliance with the Legion a while back; they've been packing up to move north, but it'll be a little while before they're all the way gone. I think every one of them would rather die than snitch to the NCR, and the NCR don't know that we're on friendly terms. If we ask 'em to 'steal' from us and deliver the weapons to the raiders, would that work?"

Arcade paused. They didn't know this information - when the hell had this happened? It felt like Six had his thumb in every pie. 

"Well...if you have a raider group at your disposal, it'd be stupid not to use them," he said, turning thoughtfully to the map. "Yes, that...that works _very_ well, actually. And it even solves a major problem with the next plan."

Quickly, he turned back. "Alright. Who's taking minutes?"

Silence at the table. Emily heaved a heavy sigh. "I'll do it - give me a second."

She left the room and came back with a clipboard and a pencil, sitting back in her seat with a dissatisfied huff. She looked up at him. "What is it?"

"It sounds as though the plan is - and correct me if I'm wrong, Six - that we will get into contact with the Happy Trails Caravan Company to purchase them, threatening to close their main trading route if negotiations fall through. I don't think they _will,_ because the embargo threatens them even without us, but just in case. Who's going to - "

"I'll talk to them," Cass said, giving him a sharp look. "One caravaneer to another. Pretty sure I can cut us a good deal _without_ making a total ass of New Vegas."

Emily scratched something down, then looked up and nodded. He continued.

"Second, someone needs to go talk to the Khans - inconspicuously. Then, we dispatch a caravan toward the NCR, lightly guarded, possibly even staffed with Khan members in disguise…? To get ambushed in as flashy a manner as possible before it hits the border. When the Khans leave New Vegas, they deliver the weapons to the raiders along the I-80 they'll pass along the way - we can leave the methodology up to them. If they need payment, they can take what they'd like out of the weapons we give them."

"I'll go," Six said. "It ain't New Vegas they're buddies with, it's me specifically."

"Go in disguise, in secret," Arcade nodded. "If you're spotted, the ruse falls through."

"'Course. Don't need to tell me that."

Arcade waited for Emily to finish scratching down the plan. "Got it," she said, as she finished, looking up at him with those sharp, distrustful eyes. 

Arcade took a drink from his water bottle, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, before continuing onto the second plan.

"Next, I've heard that the Legion has all but taken your Colorado shore. That's bad, but there's a silver lining. That means that they have outposts littered all along the coast, because armies need _supplies,_ and most importantly, _food."_

"What, so you're suggesting we just waltz in and take it?" Cass asked.

"Well...essentially, yes," Arcade said. He smiled, because this plan was his favorite. "The Legion is anti-technology, and that means that their watercraft amounts to little more than wooden rafts held together by string. Do you mind if I take a tangent? In the late 8th century, through to the 11th, Scandinavia was experiencing many of the troubles that plague New Vegas - harsh terrain unfavorable to growing crops and hungry mouths. They turned to raiding their more prosperous neighbors to the south. They'd arrive by sea, because the ocean could not be fortified, pillaged what they could and burned the rest, and escaped as quickly as they came in their distinctive dragon boats. _That_ is what I am suggesting here - in any sort of drawn-out engagement, you would lose against the Legion, and they're smart enough to burn their own supplies even if you do manage to rout them into a retreat. Instead, all you need to do is secure a single port along the Colorado shore, have a small, armed force show up in the dead of the night. Have them pillage, steal, and sew chaos, and then have them flee in motorized boats that the Legion cannot catch."

Silence at the table. Did he say something wrong again? His smile turned tight as it dragged on.

"...Vikings, huh," Emily said. He couldn't tell from her tone if it was good or bad. "Is it worth the food we'll get if we draw the Legion's ire?"

"Right, that was the most important part," Arcade said. He cleared his throat. "These vikings will not be connected directly to us. Essentially, we will provide them a startup sum of money, and after that, they'll make their own way. On the outside, they'll be a party of bandits, one out of dozens that have sprung up in New Vegas over the past month, which we - incompetent as we are - simply cannot control. In exchange for our help setting them up, they will sell food for cheap, and will be allowed to keep whatever else they find, to do with what they will."

Thus, when the Legion took umbrage with the raiders, they wouldn't be a liability to New Vegas; at the same time, should they be successful, when New Vegas had more strength, they had the beginnings of a live militia right at their fingertips.

"...Could work," Cass said, cautiously. It was Raul who piped up with an actual critique.

"And where, exactly, are you planning to find the boats for this operation?"

"You have the entirety of Lake Mead and the Las Vegas Wash under your command, under guard so heavy that even the Legion can't send spies. Salvage along there." He paused. "In fact, if you give me a spare moment to get into contact with my confederates back at the base, we might even be able to provide you with a map of likely locations."

"No," Emily said, firmly. "We're not taking our eyes off you."

Arcade shrugged. "It was just a suggestion. In any case, boats would be easy to find along Lake Mead. If anyone wants to brave the irradiation at Searchlight, it's likely there will be boats to be salvaged there, too. From what I understand, the Legion's attack on the Ranger camp there was so sudden that no one had any chance to move salvage or supplies out."

All eyes turned to Raul. He sighed into his arms.

"I can go, but not without an escort," he said. Six piped up.

"Well, there's L - "

"Don't say Lily, boss…"

"There's no one better for stealth and radiation," Six pointed out. Raul groaned.

"Fine...fine. But I'm not going to Jacobstown to get her; the mountain climb's too hard on my old joints."

"That's alright. We can send...um…"

Six paused. "Arcade, would you be up for a 1-day hike up a mountain?"

"Uh...sure?"

"I'll send Boone with you. Ain't nothing to be worried about, just go there and ask for Lily, say Six sent you. I'd send Boone alone, but - "

"Are you sure that's a good idea, Six?" 

This was the first time the girl in the brown robes had spoken. Six tilted his head. "What do you mean, Veronica?"

"He's from the Enclave."

"Yeah? And?"

"Jacobstown is a settlement of _Super Mutants."_

Arcade froze. "It is?"

Six was quick to try and reassure him. "Oh, they're friendly, Arcade. Don't fret. 'Sides, that's why I want to send him up there - the doc they've got looking at the Nightkin, he said he was from the Enclave when I asked."

That gave Arcade even more pause than before. "He _did?"_

"Yeah, said he defected before the Oil Rig blew up. Anyway, he's pretty open about it, and I figure if they're fine with him they'll be fine with you. I'm mostly sending Boone with you so you don't get shot by raiders on the way; that's the bigger problem."

"If you say so, Six," Veronica said, returning to her listless vigil out the window. Arcade's back was prickling with cold sweat - he'd heard stories about Super Mutants before, none of them good. Still, he tried to remind himself, if Six wanted him dead then he could just as easily put a bullet through his head. And if there indeed was an ex-Enclave scientist up on the mountain, Arcade couldn't exactly leave that un-investigated.

"Anyway, Veronica, would you be alright headed to Lake Mead, see what you can salvage there?"

"Yeah. Sure." She sounded defeated, but still agreed, and Six gave her a complicated look. 

"Alright."

Emily was scratching notes down on her clipboard, having already flipped to the next page. She looked up at Arcade when she was done. "And who's going to lead these Vikings? None of us have that kind of experience."

"Right…" He steadied himself, forcing himself to move on. "That's where those Khans come in. Who better to lead a party of raiders than raiders? There has to be some way to convince them to spare us a leader, if nothing else; we give the leader the money during the staged caravan attack, and they handle everything from there. That is, if you can trust the Khans to be good on their word."

"We can," Six said, confidently. "Normally I don't think we could, but all that talk about Vikings and history and stuff are right up Papa Khan's alley. He wants a legacy to chase, y'know? If you can write me up a fancy history-book report or something, I'm sure he'd be all over that."

"I'll handle that," Emily said. "There are people in the Followers who specialize in that information. Though…" she gave Arcade a dry look. "You might still want to pass it through the hands of a propagandist for review."

"Sure," Six said. "Spend tomorrow doing that; I'll leave the day after."

"Got it."

Six turned back to Arcade. "Where are we gonna put these vikings up?"

Arcade let out a small, dissatisfied sigh. That was the real problem with this plan. "I want to say south, near Cottonwood Cove. The closer they are to the Strip, the less easily we can claim that they're unaffiliated with us or that we have no ability to stop them. At the same time, I'm pretty sure the Cove is currently operating as a Legion outpost."

"You know what?" Cass said, "Cove's not a terrible idea. 'Sides, if these vikings can't kick the Legion outta just the Cove, then they've got no chance at doin' any of that other raiding shit. And then, inland, they can have Nipton, too. God knows no one else wants to live in that dump."

Six nodded. "Sounds like a plan," he said. "I'll ask the Khans, too, in case they've got any better ideas."

He turned to look at Arcade. "And what do we do once the Legion catches wise and toughens up their defenses?"

"With any luck, by then we'll have trade set up with Salt Lake City and starting returns on our long-term projects. There's no point in turning the vikings toward a war against an enemy that can easily wipe them out. Depending on how circumstances look - how angry the Legion is and how willing we are to take it - we can either simply have the raiders disband, or we can grant them full military positions. It's a good idea for New Vegas to have a live, standing army, if only to patrol and scout along the borders."

"Got it," Six said.

"And that does it for the short-term solutions," Arcade said, taking another quick sip of water. "Are there any questions so far?"

"Not a question, just an observation," Emily said, slyly. She looked at him out the corner of her eye. "You sound a lot like Caesar."

His expression twisted into a scowl before he could help it. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't compare me to him."

"All I'm saying is, he got to where he did the same way you're 'helping' us - quoting history. These plans are solid, so I've got no complaints, but I want to make sure to say it out loud."

"Knowledge is merely a tool; whether it bulldozes innocent lives depends on how it's used."

"And we're supposed to trust _you_ with it?" Emily scoffed. "Might I remind you, your _precious United States_ were the ones that bombed us to Hell and back in the first place."

"Emily," Six interrupted, before Arcade could retort. "We understand where you're comin' from, we do. But like you said, these are solid plans. At least wait for him to finish, yeah?"

She glared, then let out a long sigh. "Fine. Continue, please, Mr. Roach."

The issue wasn't settled at all, but Arcade could prioritize. "Right...well, that does it for the short-term solutions I've managed to come up with. In the long-term, we'll need more farms - surprising, right? I spoke with the Followers and they said the northern part of the map is ideal for establishing those farms, and from the research I've done, I agree. The trouble is getting them started, however."

He tapped at a few places he'd circled in black ahead of time. "There are existing farmland structures here, here, and here from before the war. These are ideal, as pipes still connected to Lake Mead can be repaired, but building new irrigation systems is almost impossible. Circled here in green are zones of radioactive runoff, which makes one of these farms unusable. However, from what I've heard - as the Followers have already scouted the area ahead of time - the pipes need maintenance and the soil is dry, barren, and hard. Fixing these issues will take several months at least, and then it may be another several months - up to a year - before seeing any crop yield, let alone enough to meet the projected demand. _However._

"This one is a bit of a shot in the dark, but in the Southwest and Northwest Commonwealths, Garden of Eden Creation Kits, or GECKS, come standard-issue with every vault. The model issued to the Western vaults is equipped with a cold fusion reactor, genetically-modified crop seeds, and fertilizer, all designed precisely for post-nuclear-war conditions. With even just two, not only would the third farm site be usable, but we'd be very nearly able to meet our projected demand within the first two years, and almost sure to meet it in the years after that, even without the trade route and the vikings."

He paused, then began again, more grim than hopeful. "However, I don't know where the vaults are, or which ones still have their GECKs. This first is information I could requisition from my contacts back at the base, but you've already made clear that you don't want me leaving your sight for the time being. It could be that there are no unused GECKs left in New Vegas. Without them, it'll probably be until after the main force arrives before we'd be able to meet our own demand."

Six nodded, solemnly drinking in the information. For a little while, there was only the sound of Emily taking notes. Arcade cleared his throat.

"Still, we have seeds and fresh water and money. In fact, money's the only thing we have in excess. While trade with the NCR is still open, we should purchase all the supplies that we can. I've already created a budget for exactly that. Furthermore, I've been requested by the Followers to see if we can find the people of Freeside some employment. It's a good idea, so once we've settled our more pressing affairs, we should begin hiring people to repair pipes, plow the fields, set up irrigation, build housing, etc."

Six nodded. "Sounds good to me. When I get back, I'll probably take Cass and Boone out prospecting in the Vaults we already know about." He thought about it for a second. "19 might have theirs...but their descendents became the Fiends, so who knows for sure. 34 and 22 are definitely out; the Boomers took theirs and I'm pretty sure a bunch of the 22ers brought theirs up north through Zion. And Vault 3 _probably_ has theirs, but...the last bunch of Fiends are holed up in there, and we haven't been able to dig them out."

"Right, the Fiends…" Arcade had heard about them while chasing up leads, surprised they were still being tolerated this close to the Strip, considering all the trouble the NCR had gone through to behead their leadership. Drug addicts who'd hit rock bottom and kept going, who had basically lost all grip on reality or sanity, with practically no chance of recovery. "Wouldn't clearing them out be easy? Just 'lose' a medical shipment of drugs laced with slow-acting poison. I know a few recipes if you need them; we use them to clear out radroaches and other vermin back at the base."

Dead silence. Arcade glanced down at the table to find everyone sitting there staring at him with varying shades of horror. 

Oh. Right. Mutants being people and all that. He wanted to slap himself. It wasn't like he'd said anything particularly wrong; the Fiends, by virtue of being Fiends, contributed nothing to society and never would. They actively drained resources, occupied space people would rather they not, and stole, raped, and killed wherever they went. However, all that said, they weren't particularly clever (or even capable of rational thought), so it'd be stupid to waste valuable pieces like Securitrons, bullets, or even other mutant lives to take care of them. But Arcade was aware that if he said this out loud, it might very well be his death knell, so he tried to change the topic.

"Sorry. I'll leave clearing them out to you, though it should happen at some point in the near future."

"...Right," Six said, apparently catching on to the fact that Arcade had realized he'd erred. "So long as you understand that _we're_ calling the shots, here."

"Of course. I defer to you." There was an awkward pause, so Arcade continued. "Er, finally, one last thing. We should probably start thinking about consolidating control over the other settlements in the area. 'Control' isn't the right word...essentially, I both understand and respect the desire for independence in New Vegas, and I don't want to suggest annexing the neighboring cities, because then there will have been no point to winning freedom from the NCR. However, even if it's only something like formal declarations of alliance or non-aggression treaties, it's a good idea to have our partnerships in writing. One day, the NCR will come knocking on our door, and if they manage to annex the cities to our immediate west, it's only a matter of time before they encroach upon the Strip itself. It's not an...immediate thing, but there's strength in numbers, and independent cities will be less likely to cave to NCR bullying if they know they've got the power of the Strip to back them."

"Alright," Six said, sagely. "That, I can see the sense in. We'll give the long-term plans some more thorough talkin' through after we've taken care of the short-term ones, yeah?"

"Yes. It seems as though everyone has something to do within the next few days. Erm, who will be looking after the Strip while we're gone?"

"Don't worry about it," Six said, waving his hand. "Emily can take care of things. She's a non-combatant and can't really leave on her own, anyhow."

Arcade nodded. Emily was principled if nothing else, and he trusted the Followers even if he didn't trust her. Besides, it wasn't his call to make. "Sounds good to me."

"You're dismissed, Arcade," Six said. "I think we've got a lot to talk about."

"Sir, yes s...understood," Arcade said, nearly slipping into old habits. Awkwardly, he felt like he ought to salute, then thought better of it and ducked out of the room. He made it to the end of the hallway before his legs gave out and he had to collapse against the wall - the ancient wall, still standing where it had been erected long, long before he was born.

He lifted his glasses to rub at his eyes, thoughts clanging around his head. It was easy to plan for war, too easy, like all his little simulated games of strategy and all his spats across a checkerboard where he talked in hypotheticals, and lives were numbers on a chart. He hated that he _could,_ and he hated that he _had to,_ and he tried not to imagine sending Devin to his death, or Judah's body with a hole where his head should be.

You are gambling with lives, Arcade Gannon. Will you be able to live with yourself if your bluff is called?

"'We must fight now,'" he murmured to himself, as if trying to convince his own brain that his cause was just and his intentions pure. It rang hollow to his own ears, but he pushed on with the stanza and verse. "'We must fight now, and we must keep our plans when the war is over, / And we must keep our hopes. And we must make - '"

"Hey." A voice startled him out of his trance, his whole body tensing and his hand immediately reaching for his gun, but only Veronica was standing before him, something like concern in her eyes.

"Um...hi."

"What was that you were mumbling to yourself?"

He felt his sunburned cheeks go red. "Nothing - just a poem. Penned more than three hundred years ago. It felt...relevant."

"A poem, huh?" She sat down across from him, sliding down the wall. "It's been a long time since I've heard a poem. How does it go?"

He furrowed his brow and looked to the closed door to the meeting room. "Shouldn't you be in there?"

"I asked to be excused," she said, following his gaze. "I wasn't feeling well."

There was an awkward silence between them, and then she turned back to face him. "So, that poem. How does it go?"

Finding no way out, Arcade sighed and resigned himself to reciting poetry, a bad habit shared by all the archivists at the base.

"'We must fight now, not with any desire for tearing glory  
From the jackets of the men we kill, and not in anger.  
But in sorrow that men again must kill and be killed  
Before the world you hoped for too can be called  
Something more than a dream of men who are weary,  
Something more than a respite of men from danger,  
We must fight now.'

" - So goes the first verse."

The girl across from him stared for a moment, and then broke out into a small smile. "That's pretty pretentious, you ask me."

Arcade snorted. "How about a couplet instead? 'War is bad / let's try to get along.'"

"Sucks," Veronica said. "Aren't couplets supposed to rhyme?"

"Don't you have something better to be doing than talking to a roach?" He gave her a wry smile. This was almost comfortable, like banter with one of his younger siblings. "No offense."

"Well, I've got 'staring wistfully out the window' at three, but I think I can be a bit late for that. We haven't really introduced ourselves yet, right? I'm Veronica."

She held out her hand. He took it, one firm up-and-down. "Arcade. My people tried to massacre yours."

"My people tried to return the favor, so I guess we're even."

Arcade tilted his head. "Your people?"

"Brotherhood of Steel. Or they used to be, anyway. They kicked me out."

"Oh."

She gave him a funny look. "You went really pale. Well, pale- _er_. You're really pale, anyone ever tell you that?"

With shaking hands, he adjusted his glasses. "Sorry. The, um, Brotherhood killed my father."

Now she went pale, looked sick. "Oh shit. Sorry."

"No, it's fine. I was young, only five years old, when it happened."

"Still - "

"And it was the Enclave they were fighting against," Arcade said. "Frankly, I think more people are upset that you didn't get all of us."

She gave a small, nervous laugh at that, more trying to convince herself that it was a harmless joke than anything. "You know, you're not at all what I expected a member of the Enclave to be like."

"I've been getting that a lot, lately. You're not very Brotherhood-like, yourself."

"Oh yeah? And what did you think a Brotherhood member would have looked like?"

Arcade shrugged. "Fangs. Horns. Claws."

"They're retractable," Veronica said, not skipping a beat. "And anyway, I figured a roach would have, I dunno. Cool high-tech cyber implants. Lasers shooting out of your eyes."

Arcade chuckled. "You know what? I believe that was actually a scrapped project in our archives."

"No kidding."

"Mhm. Abandoned when the energy cell melted its casing and parts of the lucky recipient's brain." 

"No _kidding."_

"And then we had no more test subjects. This was from before our days on the surface, and the man it was conducted on had lost his eye by tripping onto his own fork, and as much as the science department tried, they couldn't convince anyone else to lose an eye so they could test the Mk. II. But it was almost a reality." He caught himself. "Um, now that I think about it, that's a horrifying story, isn't it? Sorry."

Veronica snorted. "Well, hey, for a moment there you sounded properly Enclave. Ruined it right at the end."

"Just to be clear, I've never experimented on a live subject before in my life," Arcade said. "I'm surprised you want to come speak to me, considering the ass I made of myself in there."

"Yeah, well…" She leaned in, voice turning conspiratory. "Emily really doesn't like you, and that's a good sign. Between you and me? She's got terrible taste in men."

She looked a little guilty as she pulled back. "Don't tell her I said that."

Arcade smiled. Veronica continued."And also, I don't think you said anything particularly wrong in there. You've got the tact of a power gauntlet meeting a bloatfly's ass, but honestly? For the first time in a long time, I felt like we _weren't_ just going to crash and burn. This whole 'country' thing might...work."

Arcade ran a hand through his hair. "That's good. That means that I got at least _something_ right."

"Hey, be honest with me. Are you guys planning to do something evil, like a coup or something, if we let you in?"

Arcade's expression tightened, because he didn't know the answer to that. Certainly, he'd be hard-pressed to kill these people even if ordered to; it was clear that they were all well-meaning to the highest degree. But that didn't mean others in his base would hesitate, and frankly, he didn't think New Vegas's "government" (or what passed for one, anyway) would survive any serious Enclave attempt to depose it, should they be allowed close enough.

Veronica studied him for a while.

"Bad question, I guess," she said. "Do _you_ want to?"

"No. War is bad / let's try to get along."

That seemed to be the answer Veronica was hoping for. She gave a little smile and changed the topic. "Hey, do you have vertibirds?"

"Yes."

"Do you know how to fly one?"

"Yes. I've never been able to put my training to use, but I'm reasonably sure I could."

This line of questioning seemed to be rousing her from the strange sadness that seemed to be shadowing her. Arcade now had the impression that that wasn't her normal mode of being, that she was much more accustomed to this staccato, rapid-fire pace.

"How about Auto-Docs?"

"Two active, three stored away in pieces."

"VR pods?"

"Dozens."

"And guns? Guns better than anything we have in the wasteland?"

Her excitement was infectious. Arcade's mouth quirked up. "Would you like to see?"

 _"Would_ I?" Veronica practically leapt at him. He had to admit that he nearly flinched as a mutant sprang forward toward him. "Are you kidding? I'm ex-Brotherhood. Show me, show me show me show me!"

He laughed and reached for his hip, pulling aside the thick cloth folds of his jacket so he could get the gun out of its holster at this awkward angle. With a flourish, he tossed it in the air and caught it by the barrel, holding it out to her for her to inspect.

"There's a switch up there; that's the safety. I'm getting this back, right?"

Veronica was lost to the world as she marvelled at the gun, turning it around over and over again. She looked up at him with sparkling eyes. 

"Can I shoot it?"

"Won't Six get upset if you put a hole through one of his walls?"

Veronica laughed. "Not _here._ There's a firing range in the basement. Can I shoot it?"

"I don't see why not."

* * *

"This is the _coolest,"_ Veronica gushed. Arcade pulled down his ear protectors - she'd insisted he fire with her because it'd be weird if she shot the gun while he just stood there watching. There was already a dinky 9mm pistol here, so he was just idly shooting that, finding himself wincing at the recoil. He never did like analog guns.

"Did you say something?"

"I said this is the _coolest,"_ Veronica said, giddy. "I feel like I'm shooting a toy, but that's a way bigger blast radius on contact than the standard-issue models. Makes me want to...pry the casing open, pick this thing apart."

"Please don't," Arcade said. "R&D will kill me if you break it. There's only two prototypes in the world."

 _"Prototype,"_ she said, marvelling at the word. "I love the way that sounds. Hey, what's the casing made of, anyway?"

"Some kind of light-weight metal alloy," Arcade said, struggling to remember the lecture the researcher had given. Veronica gave him a dry look.

"That doesn't tell me anything."

"Sorry. I'm a doctor, not an engineer."

Veronica sighed and twirled the gun. "Pearls before swine." Still, she brightened, handing it back. "So did you grow up in a bunker, too? Must've, right? Your skin's so pale."

"Yes. The Brotherhood's dug in at Hidden Valley, right?"

Veronica froze mid-bounce. "Uh…"

Arcade snorted. "Is it a surprise that the US government has a list of all its holdings? Don't worry. A military bunker is an egg that's far more effort than it's worth to crack."

"That's a relief...I guess." She didn't sound convinced. "Do you want the Brotherhood gone?"

"They're performing banditry all up and down the south side of the country, I heard," Arcade said. "I don't want them gone because they're Brotherhood, but that's an issue no matter who they are."

Veronica heaved a long, heavy sigh. "Yeah. Hey, I'd consider it a personal favor if you don't suggest leaving out a crate of energy weapons covered in slow-acting poison."

Arcade coughed. "Sorry about that."

She gave him a cheeky smile. "Do you have any of those evil genius ideas for getting rid of them besides that?"

Arcade frowned, looking away. He didn't think she'd like his answer.

"Siege," he said. "There are limited entrances and exits. The NCR has the right idea - starvation is a powerful motivator. We have the forces, I think, to keep them locked inside until they either wave the white flag, or…"

"Ouch," Veronica said. "Any other ideas?"

"...I don't know," Arcade sighed. "I don't know what we have we could offer or threaten them with that would possibly convince them to go. If there is a peaceful solution, I'd prefer it - "

Veronica brightened.

" - Because they'll inflict heavy losses if we have to move them by force."

And deflated again. "Wow," she said. "The weird thing is, I don't think you're a bad person. Why does everything that comes out of your mouth have to sound evil?"

Arcade startled. "What's wrong with it this time?"

"You're talking like all that matters is whether or not we come out on top," she said, hopping up to sit on a rail. "The Brotherhood are people, too."

"Oh…" her criticism was accurate. He found that he liked talking to her, in spite of the sharpness with which she needled him; she reminded him of the members of his book club. He hoped they were doing alright.

"Sorry."

"I mean, own it, don't apologize," Veronica said. "Rub your hands together and laugh maniacally. It's not a bad thing you're putting New Vegas first; you're just making everyone uncomfortable 'cuz you make it sound like they'd be next on the chopping block if they step outta line."

Arcade gave a bitter laugh. "Can you tell I was raised a fascist?"

"I'd _never_ have known if you didn't tell me. I _swear."_ Her legs swung freely beneath her. "So what do you want New Vegas to be? Somehow, I get the feeling that it's not genocide and concentration camps, like everyone's afraid of."

"Very few of us do want that as a final product," Arcade said, similarly leaning against a wall. "In fact, even our most zealous members tend to be that way because they're dreaming of some unattainable paradise they call 'America.' The people who do still believe in mutant genocide think it'll somehow result in a peaceful world where their children can run around free on the surface. They don't seem to consider all the corpses those children would be tripping over, or that their entire way of life depends on war existing, and that they wouldn't know what to do with themselves without an enemy to fight."

"But you're different?"

Arcade gave a helpless shrug. He'd only been free of his family for a week, and he was desperately homesick. To be honest, he didn't think he'd have minded living in their weird, war-obsessed bunker for the rest of his life. The fear, threat, and promise of war made for a sense of unity and purpose. It was hard to give those up.

"I think I also dream of America," he said. "Just with a bit more concrete cause-and-effect to get us there. A strong, centralized government, a standing defensive army, free education, universal healthcare, universal basic income, and a democracy with safeguards in place to prevent corruption and private interests - those don't sound so bad, do they?"

Veronica tilted her head, considering it. "That sounds almost too good to be true. You said that every time we gain, we lose. What's the loss there?"

Arcade sighed and closed his eyes. "All the groups who can't adhere to the system we put in place have to be removed. That definitively means the Fiends, that might mean the Brotherhood, but that also might mean the Followers. And the borders would have to be tight, with very limited immigration. This system only works as long as it's self-sufficient, and it's only self-sufficient if we can control the numbers of our population. And the problem there is that the more exclusive a club is, the easier it is to become hostile to the outside. A system like this breeds nationalistic fervor, breeds imperialism and complacency, breeds intolerance, and justifies whatever atrocities it comes up with in the name of good intentions. We see it time and time again."

He gave a wry smile. "Fascism is beneficial to the people it serves, but its inherent intolerance inevitably balloons into atrocity. Socialism exists for the people, but it's weak and disorganized and slow to act, and trusts too much that people will be good to each other and avoid petty squabbles for power. Communism works in theory, but nobody likes being paid the same as someone who does less work, and centralizing so much power gives aspiring dictators an easy avenue to achieve their dreams. Dictatorships are efficient, but only function when the dictator is competent, and it's all-too-easy for someone without their peoples' best interests in mind to rise to the throne. Democracies are nominally fair, but easy to pervert in ways not apparent to the layman and slow to action. Capitalism becomes its own worst enemy, because growth based on innovation quickly becomes monopoly and oligarchy where even human lives are commodified. And anarchy is all well and good until it becomes fascism, to which it seems irresistibly drawn, and we're right back where we started."

Veronica stared at him with wide eyes, a heavy silence between them as she digested his words. Her smile, when she did finally give one, was tinged with sadness. 

"No offense," she said, "and please don't take this the wrong way, but why do you hate Caesar so much, when you and him are both looking at so much history?"

Arcade frowned. "Caesar never read the endings of his own books," he said. "He saw the formation and growth of Rome, but not the fall. To what end does the Legion exist? If it's just to emulate Rome at its worst - and it is - then it's doomed to fail, remembered only as bloody, violent conquerors who contributed nothing positive at all, and it never seemed like Caesar noticed that."

Arcade sighed, leaning forward. "Failure might be inevitable. The World Wars only escalated in scope and size. But even if only a few generations experience stability and peace, then I think that'd be a positive thing. Something for future generations to look back on and improve upon, if the next World War doesn't finally wipe out our whole species. And to that end, for that purpose...I'll do whatever it takes."

He offered Veronica a wry smile. "There's five words that have never led to anything good."

She gave one back. "As long as you're self-aware."

* * *

"Here," Emily said, roughly passing him a stack of papers and a couple history books. "I got in touch with my colleague who specializes in this stuff and it's his basic report on the Vikings. Take it and pretty it up."

Arcade forced himself to give her a polite smile. "Thank you, Emily, for your hard work."

"Don't patronize me, radroach," she grumbled. "And don't go thinking we accept you just because Six listened to some of your ideas. So you know, control over this place defaults to me if Six dies."

Arcade tilted his head. "Will you kick me out if that happens? I think I've proven my worth."

She narrowed her eyes at him, then turned with a haughty toss of her hair and stormed away.


	3. Chapter 3

_ It seems, as one becomes older,  
_ _ That the past has another pattern, and ceases to be a mere sequence—  
_ _ Or even development: the latter a partial fallacy  
_ _ Encouraged by superficial notions of evolution,  
_ _ Which becomes, in the popular mind, a means of disowning the past. _

* * *

"Here," Boone said, roughly shoving a wide-brimmed cowboy hat into Arcade's hands as they left the western edge of Freeside. "Six said to hand it to you."

Arcade had, in fact, forgotten his hat. The one in his hands didn't match his otherwise official, military-looking clothes at all, but he wasn't about to pass up what meager protection it could provide. "Thank you."

Boone just grunted in acknowledgement and took point, Arcade following along behind him. Like always, travelling with Boone was immensely awkward. He was young, about the age of Arcade's younger siblings, but he wore a haunted expression, to compete with any of the old-timer vets. Arcade didn't ask, and part of that was that he wasn't sure he wanted to _know._

About the time they made it halfway, they stopped under the shade of an old, ramshackle hut built out of the remains of a concrete building to have lunch. This, too, was an awkward affair, until (much to Arcade's surprise) it was Boone who broke the silence.

"How many of you are there?" he asked.

"I'm not comfortable answering that," Arcade said, nervously. Boone's expression didn't change.

"How many children?"

Two thirds of the base were 25 or younger. Realizing this was perhaps a point with which he could earn some sympathy - if mutants had qualms wasting innocent lives, perhaps they'd care that "roaches" had kids - he told Boone as much. Boone's scowl deepened, slightly, which didn't really tell Arcade anything at all.

"You sure you know what you're doing?" Boone asked.

"Can I ask what answer you're hoping for?" 

"Yeah. I've served under people like you before, and it ended badly. I want to hear that you won't be like them."

A First Recon sniper, meaning he'd served under the NCR, who - leading up to the final battle - had so terribly mismanaged their own army, resources, and stratagem that they'd nearly lost the Dam. Boone likely had to watch his comrades die fruitless, empty deaths, all on the agendas of politicians and businessmen. It'd make sense, if that was the case, why he didn't much seem to like Arcade.

"I can only promise to do my utmost," Arcade said, because that was the truth, and he tried to tell the truth when he could. "A country exists to serve the needs of its people. That's what I believe. Expansion and annexation, riches and wealth, those are the dreams of kings and conquerors, not the average citizen. The greatest ideal we should aim for is the right to pursue happiness. 'For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul'?"

No reaction.

"That's, er, from the Bible," Arcade said, lamely. "Mark 8:36."

Still nothing. Arcade resigned himself to eating in complete silence once more. Eventually, they hit the road again, Boone once more taking point. It was about three hours to sunset when they finally hit the base of the mountain, following an old, crumbling asphalt road as it snaked its way up the forested hill. It was another two hours trudging their way up; the sun had set by the time they made it to the small town lit up with flickering lights.

A Super Mutant with green skin greeted them at the entrance, and Arcade felt himself go stiff. He'd heard of their size and musculature, of course, but it was one thing to hear reports and another to witness one with his own eyes. It was huge. It could easily squeeze the life out of him with just one hand. 

"Hello," he said, his beady eyes falling on Arcade. "I recognize Boone, but you're a new face."

Arcade swallowed, then extended his hand for a handshake (only realizing this was potentially a very bad idea after he'd done so). "My name is Arcade Gannon. I'm Six's new financial advisor."

The Super Mutant reached its big mitt for his hand and he was, frankly, too paralyzed with fear to retract it. However, against all expectations, its grip was exceedingly gentle as it gave him a couple small, careful shakes up and down, mindful of Arcade's human frailty.

"Marcus. I keep the order around here. What brings you up to Jacobstown?"

He was, admittedly, a lot more erudite than Arcade had thought he would be. Their reports on Super Mutants _did_ say that, while most had their intelligence lowered somewhat, some managed to preserve theirs through the transformation. Marcus appeared to be the latter, so Arcade tried to force himself to relax.

"We were told to ask for Lily," Arcade said. "Admittedly, I'm a bit new to Six's administration, so I'm unsure of how close our two organizations are." And thus, how much he was allowed to say. 

Marcus frowned and gestured toward Boone with his head. "Can't you ask him?"

"Er…" Arcade had always gotten the impression that Boone didn't particularly want to speak with him, but it felt rude to say that to his face. Boone just shrugged.

"He's a roach," Boone said. "We keep our own secrets from him."

Marcus, as opposed to the response Arcade expected (violence), just raised his eyebrows. "Enclave?" he asked, surprised. "I was under the impression they'd been wiped out. Scattered to the four winds. Well."

He gave Arcade a smile. "We have a doctor here working on a cure for Nightkin schizophrenia who used to be from the Enclave. You two should meet. It's not like Lily's about to let the two of you travel home after dark, anyway."

"I really hope you don't take this the wrong way," Arcade said, "but this is the most welcome I've been since coming to the surface, and I'm immediately distrustful of it."

Marcus chuckled. "Whether it's the Enclave or the NCR or the Legion that wants us wiped out, it's all the same to us. Don't pull your gun out, don't make trouble, and don't stare at the nightkin - those are the ones with purple skin, twitchy fellas - and we'll get along just fine."

Saying so, he turned and led them into the main lodge, passing by bighorner pens and other hulking figures, obscured by shadow, watching them from a distance.

"We're trading partners with New Vegas," Marcus continued, "or at least we will be once the raiders have been taken care of. I'm sure you understand why we don't go take care of them ourselves. Six is a personal friend. Nice guy. Helped us scare off some NCR mercs who were trying to make trouble a while back."

"I see," Arcade said. So they weren't hostile, at least for the time being, and could be approached for mutual benefit, although they had no desire to come down the mountain themselves. He filed all this away for future reference as he took in their living conditions. Clearly, this ski lodge had escaped the bombs, but two hundred years of disrepair had left it in a decrepit state. Its current residents didn't seem particularly inclined to fix it up aesthetically, although there were clear signs that power lines had been uncovered and patched and big holes in the floor had crude bridges. There had also been at least a nominal attempt to keep the surfaces dusted and the floor clear of debris.

"Nice place," Arcade said, and meant it. This was a hell of a find - easily defensible, surrounded on all sides by pristine nature, rich in resources, and sturdily enough built that it had withstood the test of time. Marcus seemed to smile.

"It is, isn't it? We're pretty reluctant to leave." There was an edge in those words and Arcade realized he was being tested. He cleared his throat.

"I see no reason why you should." After all, he'd counted at least twenty heads since he'd entered the premises, and surely there were more in all the hallways and rooms and bungalows he _hadn't_ seen. A Super Mutant was a match for a soldier even in the newest set of power armor; like the Brotherhood, it would take some egregious offenses for Jacobstown to be worth the effort and spent resources on uprooting. But unlike the Brotherhood, a peaceful solution existed already: trade. So long as the relationship was profitable, there wasn't really any reason to even consider moving them. Although it _was_ a good idea to have contingencies…

Arcade shook his head to dislodge the thought when he realized he was thinking purely in pragmatic terms. If the Brotherhood counted as people, then so did the Super Mutants. They posed roughly the same threat.

"Do you plan to do trade with the NCR or Legion?" he asked, instead. Marcus gave a shrug. 

"We will if they take us, but there's a reason we left the NCR in the first place, and I don't know what the Legion's stance on us is. They've never tried to make contact."

"I see," Arcade said. In all likelihood, it was "exterminate," so he wasn't too worried about the Legion stealing them over Six. And Marcus's loose opinion seemed to be that there was no sense in picking fights, so it was even more unlikely that the Legion or NCR could convince them to turn on New Vegas.

He'd have to ask Six to include this settlement in their plans to have written-out truces and alliances. New Vegas was currently poised to take stewardship over a huge gathering of Super Mutants by offering them a firm refuge, and that wasn't something they could pass up, even if the Super Mutants weren't interested in going off to battle. The fact that they wanted to keep their current territory was good enough - it meant that this mountain, at least, was a hard border.

They reached a door at the far end of the northern wing, Marcus stopping them while he gave it a few sharp knocks.

"The doctor doesn't like being disturbed mid-experiment," Marcus explained. Arcade had been wracking his brains this whole time trying to think who this mystery Enclave scientist could be, but opinions on deserters tended to be negative, very "strike their existences from the record," so he didn't have the faintest clue.

A muffled "who is it" in an old man's voice came back from the other side of the wood.

"Marcus," he answered. "We've got some guests, Six's pals. They wanted to see Lily."

A pause, and then "come in." Marcus opened the door, and Arcade peeked around his big body - what he could make out immediately was another super mutant, big and purple (nightkin?), being attended to by a ghoul, who was unhooking it from some EEG diodes that had been attached to its head. Someone else was sitting at the terminal, but Arcade couldn't quite see them behind Marcus's arm.

"If they want to take Lily," the old man was saying, in an annoyed tone, "can't they wait until these experiments are done? I'm at a very critical point in my research - "

Arcade had stepped out from behind Marcus now, and the old man froze as he saw him, mid-sentence, mouth going slack. 

"...Mark?" he asked, voice breaking. He rubbed his eyes under his glasses, squinting, unbelieving. "Is that you?"

Arcade swallowed. So he really _was_ Enclave, then. 

"Mark was my father. My name is Arcade."

The scientist let out a long breath. "Jesus Christ. And here I thought you'd all discovered an elixir of eternal life." He rubbed his eyes again, then rolled his chair closer, taking a long, long look at him.

"You resemble your father, but you've got Delilah's eyes and hair, haven't you? So he really did end up marrying her, huh?"

"Yes. Erm, can I ask who you - "

"Dr. Wilhelm Henry," he said, curtly. "Before I left the Enclave, I served in the same unit as your father. How is the pretentious bastard?"

"Unfortunately, he stayed behind at Navarro…"

Dr. Henry sighed. "Then how about your mother?"

Arcade winced. "She passed away three years ago."

"Hmph. And I imagine the rest of my old squad went the same way."

"Moreno, Johnson, and Whitman are still alive," Arcade said. It was at that moment that the weight of Judah's death really hit him for the first time, his hands clenching at his sides. "Kreger...was executed for assassinating his CO and fabricating an evacuation order."

Marcus gave an awkward look between the two of them, at the ghoul who had an "oh my!" expression on her face, and at the nightkin, who seemed woozy from the experimentation, and coughed. "I, uh, see that the two of you need some time alone. We'll be out in the foyer."

Saying so, he grabbed the nightkin by the hand and the ghoul by the arm and pulled them out of the room behind him. Boone gave the two Enclave doctors a dubious look as he left, but he ended up following, probably figuring that Arcade wouldn't try to pull something in the middle of a camp swarming with Super Mutants. That left Arcade and Dr. Henry alone in his lab, surrounded by medical equipment, nightstalker cadavers, and dust.

Now that they were gone, Dr. Henry gave a long, long sigh, leaning his whole body against the desk.

"Well," he finally said, at length, "I guess that explains how and why you're standing here in front of me. So what, then? Is the Enclave attempting a coup of New Vegas?"

Arcade's expression tightened. "An alliance. Sort of. The main force will be returning from their eastern campaign. They ordered us to take New Vegas or die trying, and whoever survives the attempt gets to be re-integrated into the Enclave, since we're all technically considered traitors for the time being. Problem is, not everyone is on board with this. Primarily the younger generation. If I can...build New Vegas up to be strong enough to stand on its own, even against our sect, and convince them to open a spot for us - "

"Then your countrymen will still march themselves to their deaths," Dr. Henry said, with a bitter snort. "That's how the Enclave operates, though I applaud your optimistic outlook. And your pragmatism, I suppose. At least _you'll_ be on the winning side, until HQ comes to smoke you along with everyone else. The Enclave should have died at the Oil Rig - but didn't. And then they should have died at Navarro. Your CO had it right the first time."

Dr. Henry looked up at him, bitterly. "See? I'm saying all this shit but you can't even give me lip because you've been trained to respect your elders. You'll never convince them to defy orders. Look where Judah ended up."

Arcade folded his arms. "It's different this time."

Dr. Henry's tone was mocking. "Really? How so?"

"The information ban was lifted - "

The old man barked out a laugh. "Like Delilah always wanted. So what? Now you've seen a few movies, read a few books. Let me guess; the only thing that's been getting some of the Navarro vets out of bed most days is spite. Waiting for the day the muties get their reckoning, shaking their fists at the surface-dwellers and having a Day of Hate for President Kimball. Don't look so surprised; the archives were never that hard to access if you were determined enough. It isn't just that you'll never change their minds; it's that they don't mind changing yours by putting a new hole in it. You want my advice, grab your closest friends, your sweetheart maybe, and run. Leave the rest to their fates. Kill 'em yourself if you're pragmatic enough to not want them haunting your doorstep forty years down the line - that was _my_ mistake."

Arcade was silent for a long time.

"Why did you leave?" he finally asked. What did they do to him, to make him feel so strongly about his former comrades?

Dr. Henry turned back to his terminal with a dismissive wave of his hand. "I suggested we cure the mutants, not kill them. The scientist who had the President's ear at the time suggested I be put on maintenance duty for the service drones. I saw where the train was headed - don't you?"

Arcade was honestly incapable of responding to that. Bombs, war, and death. It was a cycle that haunted him with its inevitability, that mocked him in his dreams.

Dr. Henry snorted. "Tell me if this is news to you: there's no major difference between the DNA of a waster and the DNA of a fresh vault dweller. We could have kids with a tribal just as easily as we could one of our own."

Arcade blanked. "No, that can't be - "

"If you don't believe me, sequence it yourself. I'll even lend you my lab."

"But - "

"It should be obvious if you have even a little biology in you," he said, curtly. "200 years is about ten generations. _Only_ ten generations. Super Mutants and ghouls, I'll give you, but they're outliers, exceptions. The average waster's as different from you and me as we are from a vault dweller."

It...it _was_ obvious. Why hadn't he ever thought to question that before? Infertility could be easily explained by radiation damaging delicate reproductive cells, rather than genetic incompatibility. The reason he'd accepted it as fact was…

… Was because they had _tests,_ what looked like peer-reviewed, factual evidence. And if they were wrong...or, as Arcade now suspected, deliberately falsified...then nothing they did could even be a little bit justifiable. Not that it was before, but...

"What are the samples from the files?" Arcade asked, shocked. "The reports by Schreber, Curling - "

"Hell if I know," Dr. Henry said. "I was duped, too, for longer than I'd like to admit. The reason I figured it out was because I'd reached a roadblock in my research that only made sense if it turned out those reports were bogus. I always hated Schreber, so it was easy for me to believe he was a liar on top of being an asshole. And I sure got the last laugh, didn't I?"

He turned to Arcade, his mind still sharp behind his liver spots and wrinkles and clouding eyes. "So? How many people in your base would accept this? Assuming I'm telling the truth, even if you don't believe me."

Arcade stared at him. Most of the old-timers would probably give him the command to shut up. They didn't tolerate bad-mouthing their dead comrades, even if some of the more open-minded veterans had confided in him that they weren't sorry to see Schreber go, despite the fact that he was generally hailed as a hero, or if not that, then a genius.

Still, Arcade folded his arms. "More of them than you'd think," he finally said. Because he wanted to believe in his younger siblings. He didn't like the idea of giving up hope.

Dr. Henry turned to give him a dubious look, scrutinizing his expression, before turning back to his work.

"Well...don't say I didn't warn you," he finally said, a bit softer. "In any case, you came here for Lily, right? Unfortunately, I'm knee deep in these experiments, and unless it's a dire emergency, I can't let her go until they're done."

He cleared his throat. "There's a, ah, shall we say, 'testy' nightkin who's been impatient for a while. I'd rather not provoke his ire, seeing as I'm getting quite frail. He's pacified for now by prototype medication, but if he hears the research has stalled because my test subject ran off, that won't be good for _my_ health."

Arcade nodded. Unfortunately, he didn't know that sending a ghoul and Super Mutant into irradiated Searchlight was important enough...although, at the same time, the situation was dire enough that Arcade, too, felt impatient. On the other hand, the Super Mutant community looked self-sufficient, so it was a bit up to a coin toss whether or not they'd care about New Vegas's food shortage at large.

"Maybe I can help," Arcade said. "If nothing else, as a lab assistant. I'm a trained doctor."

Dr. Henry gave him a dubious look. "Oh yeah? Who was in charge of your education?"

"Dahlia Summers."

Dr. Henry pulled a face and rubbed his eyes under his glasses. "Old Dahlia, huh. These are some names I never thought I'd hear again. Well, she was always a weird one, but she was a crackshot surgeon. Fine - go and have dinner with Marcus and your friend from the Strip, then come back. There's a lot of documentation to catch you up on. As soon as the research progresses to the point where Lily is no longer needed, you can take her wherever you'd like."

Arcade nodded. "Understood."

He turned to go, not wanting to waste any time, but Dr. Henry stopped him as he reached the door. "Wait."

"Yes?" He turned. Dr. Henry looked ill at ease, unable to hold Arcade's gaze.

"We...got off on the wrong foot," he finally said. "Mark and Delilah were good people. If you really are all that's left of them, then…"

He coughed. "Well, don't be a stranger. Though I'd prefer if you didn't tell anyone liable to execute me about me being here."

Arcade paused, unsure of how to feel about that - about it being his parents being seen once more - but ultimately decided to take it as the gesture of goodwill it was intended to be. He nodded and gave the old man a small smile.

"Understood," he said. "I'll see you later tonight, Dr. Henry."

He shut the door behind him, then let out a long breath. Then he saw Boone and the ghoul standing right in front of him and nearly jumped out of his skin.

"Uh…"

"Hello!" the ghoul chirped, peppy as could be - for a ghoul, at least. "My name is Calamity. We were eavesdropping."

Arcade paused, then offered his hand. "Arcade Gannon. I guess I'm not surprised; in your situation, I'd eavesdrop, too."

She smiled and took it, giving it a few vigorous shakes up and down. "Nice to meet you, fellow labbie."

* * *

"Well, aren't you a handsome young man?" the nightkin, Lily, half-yelled at him. "Come here and let grandma take a good look at you, dear."

Arcade glanced nervously around the room, but when all he got was a "go on" head gesture from Marcus, he realized he had no allies. Reluctantly, he took a step closer, and the nightkin responded by leaning in and studying him.

"Hello," he said, awkwardly, unable to extend his hand when he was this close to her. "My name is Arcade Gannon."

"Arcade! What a lovely name. Arcade, Arcadia. 'My true love hath my heart, and I have his.'"

Arcade paused. "...'By Just Exchange, one for the other given'?"

"Oh!" She gave a few excited claps, her big hands slamming loudly against each other. "Do you know how the rest of that poem goes, my dear? I knew it by heart when I was a little girl, but these days I can only remember the first line."

"Well...yes. Song from Arcadia, by Sir Philip Sydney, 1580." It was from pastoral poems like this and Vergil's _Eclogues_ that Arcade had been given his name. To be honest, it was sometimes embarrassing - and by "sometimes" he meant "constantly" - to have his namesake be a frivolous paradise where shepherds cried endlessly to each other of love and livestock. _Soli cantare periti Arcades_. But wasn't that also the most Enclave thing imaginable?

"Well go on then, dearie, won't you recite it for me?"

"Um…"

Once more, he had no allies. Boone sat stoic and unmoving, Calamity gave him a wide, beaming smile, and Marcus nodded his head, also grinning. "Well, go on."

Defeated, Arcade could only clear his throat.

"My true love hath my heart, and I have his,  
By Just Exchange, one for the other given.  
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss;  
There never was a bargain better driven.

His heart in me keeps me and him in one;  
My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides:  
He loves my heart, for once it was his own;  
I cherish his because in me it bides.

His heart his wound received from my sight;  
My heart was wounded with his wounded heart;  
For as from me on him his hurt did light,  
So still, methought, in me his hurt did smart:

Both equal hurt, in this change sought our bliss,  
My true-love hath my heart and I have his."

Lily clapped into the silence as the poem ended, mimicking the motion of wiping away tears. "Oh, how lovely, how lovely! I never thought I'd hear that poem again. And you have such a wonderful sense of rhythm, young man!"

Arcade gave her an awkward smile. "I can imagine poetry is hard to come by in the wasteland."

"Oh, isn't that just so? Marcus knows a few, but his are…"

Marcus barked out a laugh. "'Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough / it isn't fit for humans now'!"

Lily gave a mock sigh. "Oh, there he goes again, all bombs and death."

"Oh, I know that one, too," Arcade said, blithely. Marcus grinned.

"It makes an impression, doesn't it? Crazy how long ago it was written, and it's still relevant."

"You think so, too?"

"Well," Marcus said, reclining somewhat. "we'll probably survive the bombs. Maybe we're the 'cabbages' that are coming at the end of the poem? Anyway, it sounds like you'll be staying a while, if you're helping out our doctor. Make yourselves at home - we don't get to use our guest bungalow often."

* * *

"There you are," Dr. Henry said without turning away from the microscope he was hunched over. Next to him were the remains of his own dinner, which Calamity immediately busied herself with retrieving. "I prepared the documentation for you on that desk over there. Be quiet until you can be useful."

Arcade nodded, realized Dr. Henry couldn't see him nod, then walked over to the desk. He tried to sit down as quietly as possible, wincing at the loud creaking sound of his chair, while Calamity finished cleaning up and went back to Dr. Henry's side, conversing quietly with him about their results so far. Giving them one last awkward look, Arcade turned to a small pile of printouts and the flickering screen of the terminal, reading through it all as fast as he could.

Apparently, Stealth Boys had a negative effect on the psyche when used long-term, although, from what Arcade could remember, there hadn't really been reports of that back home. It seemed the radiation was especially prone to damaging the brain stem, which led to symptoms of schizophrenia in the long-term. Perhaps these side-effects _did_ exist for humans, too, but humans simply didn't live long enough, or use Stealth Boys frequently enough, for it to matter - but every Super Mutant was more than a hundred years old, and nightkin wore Stealth Boys like Arcade wore his papers. 

Interestingly, nightstalkers in the area could also turn invisible...but as Arcade continued reading the research notes, kept in the form of a diary, at some point Six (why was Arcade surprised to see his name here?) had shown up and helped Dr. Henry investigate. Unfortunately, not much came of it. While the local nightstalkers exhibited similar brain mutation, that mutation derived from the same source, so research was back at square one. So far, they were running trials of a Mk. II model on Lily for short bursts, but had avoided longer durations for fear of potentially exacerbating her symptoms. In his notes, Dr. Henry had expressed frustration, believing a longer time period would yield better, more usable results.

To be totally honest, this was fascinating work. It wasn't immediately applicable outside the specific problem of nightkin schizophrenia, but even then, the amount of research, the clarity of the notes, and the quick turnaround of ideas and possible solutions had Arcade convinced that they'd truly lost a valuable member when Dr. Henry defected. He was so engrossed in his reading that it was the middle of the night by the time he was done, and Calamity had gone to sleep.

Arcade cautiously pulled himself away from the desk and cleared his throat. "I'm caught up," he said.

"Huh? That was pretty fast." Dr. Henry pulled himself up. "Well, the faster the better, as long as you weren't sloppy."

"What are you doing now?"

"Taking a break," the doctor said, rubbing his eyes beneath his glasses. "Then, back to work. Without being able to run longer tests on Lily, we're stuck just war-dialing chemical compounds to see what sticks. Tedious busywork, but easy enough that extra hands can help out."

Arcade wasn't exactly a neuroscientist - his expertise lay more in neuro _surgery_ \- but due to the omnidisciplinary nature of their tiny sect, he'd picked up a thing or two.

"I hope this isn't presumptuous," Arcade said, "but why not just use the nightstalkers as test subjects instead?"

"Live? You know what nightstalkers are, right?" He paused. "Actually, maybe you wouldn't. Some mad scientist fused coyotes with rattlesnakes and set them loose on the world. Nasty creatures, definitely not naturally evolved, though I couldn't tell you what sort of maniac would have created them. They wouldn't exactly be cooperative. Dead, the neuron decay is too rapid."

Arcade tilted his head. "But why not use neuro-peptide stimulators? I've never done it myself, but Dahlia told me once that she used them to prolong the...uh…'brain-life' of some of her...test subjects."

Saying it out loud made him feel self-conscious. So many things he'd taken for granted were actually pretty horrifying, weren't they? Dr. Henry's stare wasn't helping...although, after a while, Arcade realized he was staring not out of disgust, but of disbelief.

"That's...brilliant. Urgh. I hate having to concede anything to Dahlia, but when she's right, she's right. That's so...why didn't I think of that?"

Arcade stood there, unsure of what to do. Dr. Henry's eyes finally turned back to him after a few more seconds of muttering into his hands about the logistics of securing a batch of peptides and asking for a relatively fresh nightstalker specimen.

"Tomorrow," Dr. Henry said, "take that sniper of yours, and Lily if you want to, and get me a nightstalker. The fresher the better - alive, but completely restrained, if possible. More than one, if you can. For obvious reasons, I need the brain intact. Do that, and you can take Lily with you."

That, Arcade could do. "Sounds like a plan."

They stared awkwardly at each other for a few seconds, Arcade thinking perhaps he should excuse himself to go to bed, Dr. Henry with a complicated expression. Finally, it was the doctor who broke the silence, clearing his throat and looking awkwardly away.

"If you have a minute," he said, "I can make us some tea and we can...sit down and have a proper conversation. You probably won't be headed up this mountain again anytime soon - maybe not even in my lifetime. And I can't say I'm not curious about how things have been since I left. Once Enclave, always Enclave, I suppose."

Arcade gave him a small smile. "I guess I'm curious how life has been from your perspective, too," he admitted. "How you ended up living in a Super Mutant village is bound to be a more interesting story than anything I've got."

Dr. Henry let out a coughing laugh. "You'd think so, but it really isn't. Actually, the highlight of my life was that one time the Chosen One physically assaulted me on my way out of NCR territory. Still got a scar from _that_ encounter."

"The Chosen One himself?"

"In the flesh. Last I heard, he had enough illegitimate children to blot out the sun. Some in Vault City, some in New Reno, here and there and everywhere."

Arcade chuckled. "One of Six's friends seems to be the Chosen One's daughter."

"Well, I'm not surprised," Dr. Henry said, setting the kettle on a hot plate. "Six, I only spoke to him a few times while he was up this way, but he's a magnet for trouble. And that's what the Chosen One's bloodline is, so there's your fair warning."

Arcade snorted, easing himself back into his seat. "Lucky for me, she's not my type."

He took a moment to study Dr. Henry in the relative quiet of a kettle being brought to boil. He was hunched over from staring too-long into microscopes, his face wrinkly and worn and aged by dust and sun as much as any waster. If he never said he was Enclave, Arcade doubted he'd have been able to tell just from looking. He tried to imagine the wrinkled old man in front of him in combat gear, and however he imagined it - power armor or undersuit, uniform or leather civvies - nothing seemed to suit him.

At length, tea was brewed - not tea leaves, of course, but some concoction of dried herbs that was bitter and left a sour aftertaste. It woke him up as well as anything, he supposed, and it was nice to drink something that wasn't odd-tasting water.

"You really do resemble your parents," Dr. Henry said. "It's bizarre. It almost feels like I'm talking to Mark again. You know, we used to stay up late with Calvin and Delilah, sneak off to the rec room and watch safety films after-hours. Orion always grumbled about how much trouble we'd be in, but he'd tag along, too, more often than not. They ever tell you about that?"

"No, they didn't. I never even knew you existed until now."

Dr. Henry sighed. "I guess that's to be expected. Mentioning deserters by name's pretty seditious, and we can't have that."

"My mother rarely ever talked about the old days," Arcade said, nervously. Thoughts he'd never voiced aloud before were now bubbling to the surface. "I think she didn't want me to know what we'd done. I pieced it together talking to people who were proud of it all."

"It's funny," Dr. Henry said. "She always hated the idea of having kids." He paused, realizing he might have insinuated that Arcade was unwanted, and corrected himself. "You wouldn't have the name you do unless she loved you. I'm just surprised, is all."

"No offense taken," Arcade said. He could tell she did. Still, his hands squeezed around his cup. "It might have been pragmatic. If it didn't start that way, it ended that way. I could tell that she loved me, but...every child born to the Enclave has to be useful. This, here, now, me working my way into the good graces of New Vegas's dictator - it's what I was raised for."

Dr. Henry gave him a wry grin. "That doesn't sound much like Delilah, but who knows? If she lost Mark at Navarro, I could see it. That girl was passionate. In love, learning, and grief, too."

Arcade looked up at him, tilted his head. "What was my father like?"

"No one ever told you?"

"Just that he was a 'good man,'" Arcade said. "Over and over. He's the shoes everyone's been hoping I'd fill."

Dr. Henry snorted. "Well, they're right, at least. Mark was a good man. Noble, I'd say. Calvin was cheeky about it, Delilah a bit of a spit-fire, but Mark was always even and calm no matter what stupid thing the four of us were doing. But if I had to say, I think that was his problem - that he was _too_ noble, that it hurt him when the world didn't measure up. I don't really know what he wanted out of life - I'm not sure he really knew, either." 

He took a long breath in and let it out in a big sigh. "I think he wanted his life to be significant, for it to have meant something, and it killed him whenever he was reminded that he was just a cog in the machine. So I guess he got his wish, dying at Navarro so the rest of you could live. That's the sort of death heroes dream of."

Arcade looked down at his hands. "Are we the heroes in this story?"

Dr. Henry gave a sharp, barking laugh. "Are there any? At the end of the day, we're all just monkeys having the same slap-fights over the same ideologies as we always have."

He gave Arcade a piercing look. "We can only be responsible for ourselves. In his own last moments, Mark probably thought himself a hero - and it's not my place to take that from him, or yours. I'd like to be able to think I lived a worthwhile life when it's my turn. So that's what I'm doing here - nothing noble."

Arcade nodded, feeling like he only grasped half of it - that he'd have to sit on it, simmer the idea, before he could come up with a rebuttal, and even then it wouldn't be worth it.

Dr. Henry, in the awkward silence, gave his creaking body a stretch. "So the main branch is coming."

Arcade's voice was quiet. "Yeah."

"And you're the only one who can stop them?"

"No," he said, because there was the younger generation back home, and now Six and his inner circle too, "but it certainly feels like it."

Dr. Henry sighed through his nose. "I can't be of much help," he said, ruefully. "It's been too long - they probably won't even recognize me, and if they do, they'll probably execute me by firing squad. But what's your plan? Asking Six nicely for the keys to the kingdom?"

"Building up New Vegas as a nation," Arcade answered. "It's the only way. Strong enough to deter our own sect from fighting, strong enough not to fold to the NCR or Legion, strong enough to stare down the main sect."

Dr. Henry gave him a mean stare out the corner of his eyes. "And how much blood are you planning to spill?"

Arcade squeezed his eyes shut. He hated his own answer.

"As much as I need to."

No revolution was ever bloodless; no gain was ever made without loss. This had been drilled into him since the moment he was born. All of America's failures, all its mistakes, all the people left dead without anyone to remember them - now, it was his turn to commit some atrocities in the name of the greater good. How many would they sacrifice to her pyre before they could finally be at peace?

"Whose?"

Arcade gave a rueful smile. "You ask that like I have a choice."

"...Delilah did a terrible thing to you, huh?" Dr. Henry asked, softly. "Dying before she could take responsibility for what she's raised you into."

Most likely, the reason Arcade was having difficulty blending in with the wasters - doubly now that he knew they were humans, just as human as anyone else - was because he was a monster. If not by heritage, if not by the sheer crushing weight of the Enclave's legacy, then by the guiding hands of his teachers, who had pushed him this far.

His mother used to say - half-jokingly - that she was raising him to be the President someday. Their last president had tried to poison the skies, killing everyone living on the planet's surface. It was those heavy footsteps he was following.

But acknowledging that, in itself, was something that what little humanity he had left in him couldn't bring itself to do. "I don't know what you mean…"

"Nothing," Dr. Henry said, understanding. "But when this is over, come back up the mountain and have a drink with me. I have a feeling you'll be needing it."

* * *

"Well, hello, Raul," Lily said, the most distant that Arcade had ever heard her. Raul, too, was distant and awkward, scratching the open tendons on the back of his neck.

 _"...Hola,_ Lily."

"How are you doing?"

"Fine - could be better. You?"

"Just fine. Shall we get going?"

"Yes...let's not waste more time than we have to."

Six leaned over to Arcade once the two were out of earshot. "Raul was held captive by some nightkin for a while up on Black Mountain," he explained. "As for Lily, I think she just doesn't like his attitude. Raul's older than she is - bet it throws her for a loop."

"Huh," Arcade said, because he really had no idea how to respond to that. Six gave him a grin and pulled down the brim of his hat. 

"It'll be a bit before Cass n' Veronica get back. We'll probably be doin' our highway robbery in a week. 'Til then, what can we do?"

Arcade snapped to attention. He had his answer prepared, naturally.

"Alliances," he said. "The terms must be, firstly, non-aggression between members of the alliance; secondly, the Strip as a guardian, lending its forces to defend her allies if they are threatened by the NCR or Legion once we have forces to spare, third, unrestricted travel for anyone carrying a Strip passport of a special make, which we will begin issuing within the week, and fourth, unrestricted trade for anyone carrying the aforementioned special Strip passport."

Six raised an eyebrow. "Why the passports?"

"From what I understand," Arcade said, "they're currently the closest thing to personal identification that exist in New Vegas. They have several flaws if we use them as such - namely, they have no form of ID verification, such as a photo, fingerprints, or genetic sample - but having a document recognized across New Vegas as proof of our recognition makes it easier to implement a more consistent form of ID later on down the line, which will massively strengthen security against spies from either the Legion or the NCR."

Furthermore, the terms of the proposed treaties very much made the Strip a centralized force. Those recognized by the Strip had special privileges; those who were in danger of encroachment turned to the Strip for help.

"Not sure I'm a fan of IDs," Six admitted. "Feels a bit like collarin' people."

"Even when owning one grants privileges?"

Six gave him a good-natured smile. "Privileges're what you call it when you take away freedoms n' only give some of 'em back, pardner."

Arcade laughed, too. "Well-said. It was the devil who provoked David into taking a census of his people, after all."

Arcade leaned over the table, expression cool. "I still think it's something that ought to be done. What will you do if one of these areas bars you from entry?"

"Ask why, I guess," Six said. "'Sides, the Boomers already don't let nobody but me approach."

Arcade paused. "The vault-dwellers up north who came into possession of a B-12 bomber?"

"Mhm. Helped 'em fish it up from the bottom o' Lake Mead."

Arcade stared at him, then pinched the bridge of his nose under his glasses, finally giving Six a horrified look. _"Why?"_

Six didn't seem to understand Arcade's exasperation. "They asked and it seemed interestin'. Emily reacted the same way - what's the issue here?"

"Only that aircraft are such a massive tactical advantage that they could single-handedly level any of the nearby settlements outside the Strip itself, that's all," Arcade muttered, the tempo of his speech rising with his frustration. "This is...fine. It's only the _one_ plane. Nevermind that they could even level Jacobstown if they wanted to - no, it's fine! I'm sure that plane is in good hands. Hands that do not treat outsiders as hostile forces to be fired upon on sight."

"Yeah, they've got them military VR pods for trainin', though they didn't give me a turn." Six shrugged. "They're friendly enough folks, just hate outsiders is all."

"And will be delighted to hear the terms of our peace treaty."

Six looked at him like he was stupid. It was very insulting, actually; Arcade felt genuinely affronted.

"You kiddin'? They'll shoot me for even suggestin' they check for somethin' like an ID before they get to start firin'."

New Vegas was doomed.

"Six," Arcade said, "this is very, very important. Whatever you do, do _not_ upset the Boomers - not without a surefire plan to completely wipe them out first. Do you understand?"

Six tilted his head, like a juvenile deathclaw unable to comprehend the command it had been given. "Thought you'd have more sympathy, considerin' the Enclave's the same way. Isolationists, blow up everyone who's different from them, whole nine yards."

"Yes, that's the problem. You see why that's a problem, right?"

"I'm just sayin'," Six said, "they've got kids at their base, lots of 'em. And they're tryin' to open up a bit, just takin' it slow. And they even call us savages! Don't y'all have a word for us, too?"

"Muties," Arcade said.

"So I don't think it does us any good talkin' about killin' 'em off. They're people too - like yours are, and you're doin' your damndest to save _them._ "

Six was an idiot, objectively, but he made _excellent_ points. Frankly, it made Arcade very nervous. 

"So then what? If extending the offer is dangerous - "

"Then we just tell 'em frankly that we're askin' others but we don't think they need us since they can defend themselves. That's what the deal is, right? We protect 'em, and in exchange, they can't keep us out. Let 'em know if they ever feel like joining in, we're open."

"...And what if someone else asks?" Arcade said. "What if someone else offers them wealth - however they define it - if they side against us? How many lives will we lose then?"

Six frowned at him. "But is 'maybe they'll bite us' enough of a reason to go flushin' 'em out? Sounds a little paranoid, Arcade. Not everyone is out to get us - an' actin' like they are invites it."

He brightened. "Hey, I've got an idea. How about you come with me 'round New Vegas?"

Arcade blanched. "What?"

"Yeah. You're dead set on becomin' king, right? You should get to know everyone."

"I'm not - "

"When can you be ready to go?"

There was simply no reasoning with this force of nature. Arcade sighed. "No time like the present."


	4. Chapter 4

_ Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!  
_ _ Sail on, O UNION, strong and great!  
_ _ Humanity with all its fears,  
_ _ With all the hopes of future years,  
_ _ Is hanging breathless on thy fate! _

* * *

Sloan was a small town based outside the quarry. Without NCR operations in the area, it sat largely abandoned aside from the original inhabitants and those miners who decided to stay behind. With the dangerous wildlife in the area, they had some modicum of protection from raiders, but they grumbled to Six as he laid out terms of protection that they needed something done about the raiders to the north. The same raiders, Arcade thought, as he consulted the map in his head, as Jacobstown was complaining about.

"We'll take a circle around the countryside," Six said. "And we'll deal with the raiders when we hit Jacobstown again at the end."

"Um, by 'we,' you mean the Securitrons, right?"

"Nope."

"I suppose," Arcade said, desperately trying to rationalize his way into it, "they're too valuable a resource to waste...compared to our fragile human lives…"

Goodsprings was tiny, but it had a source of freshwater independent from the Dam. As things were, they were…Arcade frowned to think about it. Exceedingly small, and exceedingly susceptible to NCR encroachment. It was entirely likely that the main reason they _hadn't_ been occupied by the NCR was because the NCR's eyes were turned toward bigger prizes. After bringing that up when negotiations slowed, the townspeople seemed to waver, and ultimately, they accepted the terms.

"We trust you, Six," said the matron of the saloon. "We just hope joining your little club doesn't mean we're signing up for the NCR, part two. We like our little way of life. If it's just letting traders through, we'd do that already, so the ID thing just seems unnecessary is all."

Later, while they were staying in an empty home for the night, Six turned to him and asked again. " _Is_ that part really necessary?"

"It's a compliance technique called 'foot-in-the-door,'" Arcade said. "A study was once conducted when several women were phoned and asked if they could answer a few questions about what sort of cleaning products they had in their houses as part of a study, which of course they agreed to. Several days later, the same experimenters asked them if they would be willing to allow five or six men inside their houses to look through their cupboards as a follow-up. The women who had initially agreed to the questions were twice as likely to say yes to the second request than women who were never asked at all."

Six nodded, though he seemed unhappy. "You sure know your stuff. But doesn't that seem slimy to you, pardner?"

"More or less slimy than anything I've suggested so far?" Arcade asked. Truthfully, it _did_ feel slimy; he felt uncomfortable taking advantage of human psychology this way, or that it came so naturally. Back home, they'd make a game out of identifying fallacies, compliance techniques, and propaganda...but out here, he almost felt like he could get wherever he wanted on rhetoric alone. It was because Six seemed to understand only about three-fourths of what Arcade had to say that his powers didn't work on him.

"Good point," Six said. "I just think it's not really making us popular. People are afraid of the big guy steamrolling the small ones - it's what the NCR does, it's what the Legion does."

"It might be inevitable that power congregates," Arcade said. "I believe it's inevitable. But in my eyes, the deciding factor is who's in charge of that power, and by extension, what _they_ want. You don't _have_ to quash these smaller settlements, or force them to adopt a unified culture. Why do the NCR or Legion do it?"

"The NCR does it for resources," Six said. "Usually as a side gig. They gotta force whoever they're taking from to 'join' their government, so then they can say they took it fair n' square 'by popular vote.' Legion does it 'cuz Caesar was a crazy person. Why do _you_ want these people united?"

"Strength. There's strength in numbers. There's unity in mutual benefit. By nature, humans are very - pack-oriented. If these settlements believe they're a part of something bigger than themselves, they can be…"

His voice dropped a little. "They can be manipulated to act according to the best interests of the collective group from time to time. There's no need to change their way of life so long as that is the case."

Six chuckled. "Use the word 'persuaded' next time, yeah?"

"Persuaded, then," Arcade said. "If Goodsprings' water is to be used by the Strip, it should be used primarily to develop Goodsprings itself, who have the most claim to it. But in case of emergency, they'll be friendlier to the idea of lending it to Sloan or Primm if they're all part of the same group than if they're all completely disparate regions."

Primm was a gambling town, and likely to be the hardest hit by the trade embargo, as they had little freshwater, thus little food, and had relied greatly upon NCR caravans in recent years. But that also made them an easy sell - the NCR's army, in their eyes, were entirely useless, after some sort of scuffle with escaped NCR convicts earned the townspeople absolutely zero support from the NCR troops stationed just outside. To them, the promise to open trade with Strip-approved traders was also a promise that Strip-approved traders would be coming; if they had those, said the town leaders, then they really didn't have any need for the NCR at all. 

On their way out, Six decided to show him around town. The ruined rollercoaster, which had caught his eye as he approached the town from Goodsprings, was immense, and even in its dilapidated state, made Arcade nervous imagining what riding it would be like. Then Six showed him the marginally less impressive Mojave Express office he'd checked in with on the way up north to the Strip - this was before he knew the road had been closed due to deathclaw infestation - and Arcade's heart just about leapt up to his throat when he saw what was sitting out on the counter.

"That's an eyebot," he said, eyebrows shooting up. "What's it doing all the way out here?"

"Huh?" asked the man who ran the office. "Oh, that old thing. I've been tryin' to fix the poor rustbucket after a sniper took it out on the road, but nothin' goin'. I was thinkin' of dropping it off at the junkyard in Novac."

Six tilted his head. "Do you want it, Arcade?"

Arcade swallowed. Eyebots were highly specialized equipment, to the point where they could be afforded only by the government and the insanely wealthy (who, at the time, might as well have been part of the government, for all the power they had over its proceedings). He normally wasn't one for status symbols, but at the very least, if it could be brought back to "operational" it'd be an amazing asset. 

"I do, but I can't repair - "

"We can ask Veronica or Raul to do it," Six said, easily. "Both of them are good at tinkerin' with robots. If it's alright with you, Jon, I'd like to take it off your hands. I know you made the offer before."

"Sure thing," the man said, just as easily. "Wife's been nagging for us to get rid of it anyway. Just felt kind of bad leaving it on its own."

They stayed in Primm for the night, despite the fact that they could make it to Nipton's wreckage if they really wanted to. The reason for this was simple: the Brotherhood.

"Between this fancy robot and the gun at your hip," Six said, "it's probably better to take a trek east through the desert and over the mountains than to walk along the highways. There's not much down that direction, anyways, but Brotherhood's scared of going north 'cuz they know I'm not too favorable towards 'em right now."

"I also have no desire to be shot by Brotherhood patrols, so this plan sounds good to me," Arcade agreed. 

"You won't get shot if you hand your stuff over," Six said. "But then, that's usually the problem, and I don't think me being an honorary member's gonna help much if they come lookin'."

"...You're an honorary - nevermind," Arcade said. "No, it's not important. Nevermind."

Then, never one to let an opportunity pass him by, he turned to Six.

"Say," he said, "since we're in the business of meeting people and shaking hands right now...would you like to meet one of my scouts? To be clear, if Emily were here, she'd advise you not to do it. It'd leave you outnumbered in case we wanted to do something like kidnap you. But it'd be reassuring to me if we had another person."

Six grinned. "I'll be honest, I've been curious about your 'confederates' ever since you brought 'em up. How long to get in contact with them?"

From out of his bag, Arcade pulled a large, dark-grey metal box covered in knobs, powered by a microfusion cell. Six furrowed his brow. 

"A radio?"

"Broadcaster. Someone at home base will be listening in to our specific channel, then they'll send the message to the scout."

He set it up on an old, creaking table, powered it on, made sure it was set to the correct frequency, extended the antenna as high as it would go, and entered a combination of digits on the number pad. Then he paused and pulled out his copy of the map, carefully punching in their coordinates, before hitting the "SUBMIT" key.

"And now we wait," Arcade said. "It'll broadcast until we turn it off or it runs out of power, so if no one shows up within twenty-four hours, we should leave on our own."

"Nifty," Six said. "Now, I'm not too learned about stuff like this, but it's pretty good technology, right?"

"Probably space-age, by wasteland standards," Arcade admitted. "In terms of signal strength, range, and options. It's a phase-shift modulator, meaning - "

Six waved his hand. "All I mean is, I think it'd cheer Veronica up to take a look at it. Again, I'm not too learned about this sort of thing."

Arcade smiled. "Alright."

* * *

At around 0900 hours, there was a knock on their door. When Six opened it, Arcade peering down from behind him, the person standing there had changed so much in the few months since Arcade had last seen him that he almost didn't recognize him.

"Oh, hello!" Devin said, dressed in waster leathers with suntanned skin. "I asked around and heard my uncle was staying here."

Six turned slowly to Arcade, expression somewhere between surprised and delighted. He pointed at Devin. "Nephew?" he mouthed.

Arcade grabbed Devin by the arm and pulled him into their room, closing the door behind him. 

"Six, I'd like you to meet Devin. He's the scout. Devin, this is Six. The Courier."

As a testament to his training as a scout, Devin just beamed and shook Six's hand, completely at ease. "Wow, _the_ Courier? I've heard so much about you."

Six beamed back. "Your nephew's so cute, Arcade," he said. 

"Not my nephew," Arcade sighed. "No more than any of the other kids at the base, anyway. And please don't let his good nature and winning smile fool you - Devin's hobbies include stealing food from the cantina after-hours and spray-painting deathclaw horns. Devin, you can drop the act - the policy when dealing with New Vegas's leadership is honesty."

Devin nodded, his relaxed countenance turning military, and he glanced over at Six with guarded eyes. "Okay, then. So what's this about? Are we kidnapping the Courier?"

Arcade snorted. "Would that it was that easy. There's a line of succession already in place. We need to go to Novac. To avoid Brotherhood patrols, we're going across the desert. And I wanted to introduce you to leadership here."

"Can do," Devin said, "though I can't be gone from my post for more than a couple days, or else my CO's going to get suspicious."

Six tilted his head, took a step forward, and looked Devin carefully up and down. "Arcade," he said, carefully. "This is a kid."

Devin made an affronted noise. "I'm twenty-four. I can vote."

"Twenty-four?" Six asked, incredulous. "Naw, naw. Arcade's twenty-four. Ish."

Arcade cleared his throat. "I'm thirty-five. I'm old enough to run for office, technically."

Those incredulous eyes now turned on him. "No kidding?"

"Uh, not for nothing," Devin interjected, "but are you sure this guy's in charge of the Strip, Arcade?"

"As incredible as it is, yes."

A long, uncomfortable silence settled between them. Six's brain seemed to have broken from trying to comprehend that Arcade was very close to his age.

"New Vegas is doomed," Devin said, finally. He sighed and pulled out a map from his backpack, spreading it out along one of the beds. "Okay, Arcade - and you too, Six, sir. We've been keeping tabs on the Brotherhood for a while, and the good news is they mostly patrol along the stretch of I-15 and the 164 coming out of the Mojave Outpost, because that's where all the caravans come in from. Not too close, because there's still some NCR Ranger presence that close to their own outpost, but their main targets are definitely the NCR trading caravans."

"Huh," Six said, tilting his head. "You think they know about the trade embargo? ...You think I should tell them?"

"No," Arcade and Devin said at the same time. Arcade cleared his throat to explain. "There's not a lot of tactical benefit to giving them any extra information, and especially not to drawing their attention in your direction for no reason."

"Makes sense," Six said.

Devin waited to see if he had anything more to add, then continued.

"Other than that, they like to hang out around Cottonwood, maybe Nelson. They seem to have negotiated some sort of ceasefire with the Legion - patrols don't seem to be fighting each other, considering we never find Legion corpses with laser holes or TI-51b's with spears through 'em. There's a chance they're trading partners. That's what Mag thinks, anyway. She says it'd make sense; the Legion has food, the Brotherhood has...well, same as us. Repair skills or medical skills, even if they don't want to part with any of their actual tech. Considering they're keeping clear of New Vegas, it seems they understand their population won't match up against the Legion's in a fight, so at the very least they're not on hostile terms." He gave Six a nervous glance. "You'd better prepare for a working howitzer next time you engage them, just in case. Maybe more than that."

Arcade's expression fell. "Worst-case scenarios, one after the other," he said. "Well, that's not true, I suppose. The real worst-case would be if the Brotherhood were actively trying to arm the Legion in order to overthrow New Vegas, but from the sounds of it, it hasn't yet come to that. We'd have noticed if the Legion started carting energy weapons or power armor."

"Luckily."

"Won't this throw a wrench in our Viking plan?" Six asked. 

"More than a wrench - the whole Highwayman. We may have to scrap the whole thing to avoid loss of life. That, or massively tweak the strategy. The Brotherhood's major weakness is a sheer lack of manpower. If the Vikings don't keep a permanent camp, they can pretty easily dodge Brotherhood patrols, but that becomes much more difficult if the Brotherhood is working together with the Legion, who have the sheer numbers required to patrol the riverbanks. It could work if we base them out of an area we do control, such as Boulder City, but then we'd very obviously be declaring hostile relations with the Legion."

Devin tilted his head. "You've been going on about Vikings for a while now. Do I get to know what it's about?"

"We're putting together a small militia to rob supplies, especially food, from Legion outposts using hit-and-run tactics. They'll be attacking via motorized boats along the waterway," Arcade said. "It's designed to be a short-term solution to New Vegas's ongoing food shortage, under the guise of New Vegas's incompetence - we're treating them as one of the dozens of raider camps that have popped up since the battle at the Dam."

"Roger roger," Devin said, stroking his chin the way Arcade did. Lots of the kids had picked up the habit from him, come to think of it. "Okay, this might be good news for you, then. There's a whole community of ghouls living down in Searchlight - that's what I heard, anyway; obviously I can't go check it out myself. Since apparently the Strip is super friendly about ghouls and Super Mutants now, since you lifted restrictions on 'em entering the Strip, if you can get into contact with those things, they might be able to store your boats in exchange for part of the loot, or something?"

"Not 'things,'" Arcade corrected, quickly. "People."

"Oh. Yeah. Sorry." Devin coughed. "Don't talk to that many ghouls."

"That could work," Six said. "Damn, too bad we can't send a message. Raul's down there right now, and he ain't going to be happy to hear I wanna send him that way again."

"This is why I kept trying to get us in contact with our scouts," Arcade said, seeing an opportunity to shill for his sect. "Currently, the closest thing New Vegas has to an intelligence network is the Followers. We don't have the same numbers, but each one of our scouts is excellent."

"Aw, stop. You're making me blush." Devin cleared his throat to return to the matter at hand. "Anyway, that's the state of the Brotherhood, best as we can figure. If we cut across the desert and up over the mountains, should be fine - there's Super Mutants up that way, but it's a lot easier to slip past them than Brotherhood."

"Oh, they're friendly," Six said. "About to leave for Jacobstown, last I heard. I told 'em to give us a shout when they decide to do it so we can let the other towns know not to shoot, but Super Mutants bein' Super Mutants, they probably forgot. Either way, they're friendly."

"Devin," Arcade said, slowly, since he could see the same sort of disbelief on Devin's face as he knew came over his own every other time he spoke to Six, "one thing I need for you to understand going forward is that Six is personally friends with almost every single person in the Mojave, so you'll save yourself a lot of stress if you decide early to stop being surprised."

"Roger roger."

He picked up his map and stuffed it back into his backpack, before swinging that around back over his shoulders. "Sounds like we should get going, then. We can chat on the road. Arcade, you _gotta_ tell me what you've been up to so I can tell the rest of the book club."

"Of course."

Devin gave Six a big grin. "And it's great to meet you, Six. Thanks for taking care of Arcade. If you let him die, we'll hunt you down and kill you, filthy mutie, so you'd better keep an eye on him."

Six laughed. "Aw, Arcade. You're so loved!"

* * *

Devin, excellent scout that he was, weaseled a lot of information out of Six on their journey up the mountain. Six, a creature of pure instinct, seemed to catch on to what he was doing, so no information of vital importance was divulged. However, since it was good-natured on both sides, it had the feeling of casual conversation.

Six had been born to a Shi woman and an unknown father, and could only remember a few phrases in Chinese since his mom died not too long after. With nowhere to go and very few options, he signed up to work for some caravans as a guard-slash-whipping-boy. Around the time he turned 18, he started working as a full-time independent courier. He'd been all up and down the entire west half of the country, having run letters from the Boneyard to Denver, from Two Sun to Seattle. 

His stories were fascinating, although not well-told. He rambled on about the nuclear winter to the north and the toes he'd almost lost from frostbite, the eerie emptiness of the roads between Legion settlements, lined with rotting corpses on crucifixes, and the churning ocean, whose shores were covered with fog nets set up to catch fresh water from the air. He tried to describe, largely unsuccessfully, exactly what it was about New Vegas that was so special and eye-catching to him, but all Arcade and Devin could parse from his description was that he had a "good feeling" about the place. Arcade was quickly learning that Six's hunches were practically premonitions, however, so he decided to keep his mouth shut.

In turn, Devin and Arcade volunteered information about the Enclave. Their founding, their history, all the cool stuff they had (read: potential assets) back at the base, all the avenues of research being pursued by their Navarro-brand off-beat scientists and tinkerers. Arcade had a feeling that most of it passed over his head, however.

They _did_ end up encountering some of the super mutants on patrol, but Six gave them a big, full-body wave while Arcade and Devin both nervously reached for their guns. However, the Super Mutants tilted their heads, then waved back, letting the three of them pass by unmolested. 

"Friendly fellas, I told you," Six said. 

They made camp under a mountain ridge, Six teaching Devin some sort of waster trick for setting up a campfire with the remains of an old lighter. 

It was as they were settling in for sleep, Arcade having volunteered for the first watch, that he and Devin finally got some time alone while Six set up the sleeping area, shielding it from cold mountain wind with a tarp he'd brought from the Strip.

"You look well, Devin," Arcade said. "Keeping safe?"

"Less safe than I'd like," Devin admitted. He looked like he wanted to say something more, so Arcade gave him silence and space with which to do so, but instead, he threw himself at Arcade, wrapping his arms around him and squeezing hard enough to hurt. "Do you have any idea how worried we were? And then when you finally call, it's just a request for personnel! Everything's gone to _shit_ , Arcade!"

Arcade paused, uncomfortable, then patted Devin's head as the 20-year-old started screaming into his jacket. "Moreno's gone fucking insane! If you step outta line they beat you for a whole day and leave you without food for three. They keep saying it's 'protocol' but that - "

"That's correct," Arcade said, softly. "They're not wrong - it _is_ standard protocol."

"I know, but - "

"That's why we're here, Devin."

"They scrubbed all the murals, Arcade. They're gone." 

He felt a pang go through his heart at that. He was expecting it - they all were - but it still hurt nonetheless. How much heart and soul had been splattered across the walls in the decades they'd been living there? It took twenty years to paint a whole world unto the base's cold steel, and only a few days to destroy it.

"Art is always the first thing to go," he said. "Time and time again. The fact that you're on the side of the art being removed is the best possible sign that you're fighting the good fight."

He returned Devin's hug, trying to comfort him as best as possible, like he had to all the kids, over and over again. "Are Maggie and Ruth at least using it as a recruitment opportunity, like they should?"

Devin sniffed, then pulled away to glare up at Arcade with defiant eyes. "Of course. What do you take us for?"

"And everyone's been advised to comply?"

"Been getting coached by Johnson on how to make it look convincing."

"Good work. I know the odds feel insurmountable, and history would say that we're on the losing side, and even our best possible outcome isn't very inspiring - "

"You should write greeting cards," Devin sniffed.

Arcade laughed. "Yes, yes. Either way, it's our duty to each other to do our utmost for each other. Even for those who have lost their way. Even if it means that we end up having to do unspeakable things, because we cannot win on moral high ground alone. I can only do my utmost to ensure that as few of those unsavory tasks fall to you and the other kids as possible."

Devin gave him a complicated expression - something bordering pity, maybe, before leaning into the hug once more, head pressed against Arcade's chest. Maggie had told him before he was the perfect size for hugging, since he was much taller than the average. 

"Don't take everything on by yourself," Devin said. "We're all in this together. You're always saying that, so don't turn into a hypocrite just to keep us safe, alright?"

"Alright." Maybe he only half-believed it himself, maybe Devin could tell, but either way, they left it there.

Finally, Devin pulled away. The time they had to be human to each other was limited, and he was taking the middle watch, so he needed to get his sleep while he could. 

"As far as I care, you're my real CO," he said, finally.

"That's devastating."

Devin grinned. "That's too bad. You've got my vote. Gannon for president, 2284."

With that, he gave a salute - still wearing that shit-eating grin - and left for the bed that Six had made, leaving Arcade to tend to the fire while he watched for nightstalkers and coyotes. According to Six, there were wanamingos to be found along the mountain range, too, but the courier had mostly seen them to the south. Wouldn't that be just terrifying? He tried not to think about it too hard, even as he brought his gun up to his chest, just in case.

But as the night dragged on and he let his guard drop, face warmed by the fire's embers, he noticed for the first time the night sky. The Strip in the distance lit up the darkness with its gaudy, eternal glow, but even still, he could see massive splatters of twinkling white light from one pole to another. 

Wasn't the surface world beautiful, actually? Wasn't it vast and breathtaking at every turn? Wasn't it heartbreaking what they'd done to it?

Would that they'd never err so terribly again. He grabbed his sleeves and squeezed. Was he making the right choice? Was he, as Six said, collaring these people? Or was he, as he tried to tell himself he was doing, protecting them?

He didn't know. He probably wouldn't know for the rest of his life - humanity would probably figure out if he was a hero or a villain long after his death. But, remembering Dr. Henry's words, maybe it was enough to act according to his own ideals…

Either way, they had nowhere to go but forward. Forward, toward the unknown; forward, toward heaven or hell.

* * *

Halfway down the mountain, Devin had to leave them. "It should be safe from here on out," he said, "unless you've pissed Novac off somehow. I need to get back to my post, and the trek's longer than I was expecting." He grinned and made jazz hands, slipping back into his waster accent. "Call me up if you ever want intel on the movement of NCR caravans or Brotherhood patrols on the southwest side of New Vegas. Don't be a stranger, now!"

Six laughed. "Great meeting you, Devin. Take care, hear me?"

And so they parted ways, Devin's figure jaunty as he clambered up the mountains, leaving Six and Arcade alone once more.

Six broke the silence with an earnest question. "Who's Moreno?"

Arcade supposed they weren't particularly being secretive last night. "He's the current acting Corporal - head of the sect. Charitably, you could call him a patriot; uncharitably, a zealot. He believes deeply in the Enclave, in their... _our_ mission. But after losing Navarro, I heard he became very...bitter. Even more so now that he's realized his own CO had been lying to him for the past thirty years."

To be honest, he felt bad for Moreno, despite the man's insane patriotic fervor - or maybe because of it. He came from a different base than Arcade's parents had, transferring over in his teenage years. His home base had fallen to wastelanders rallied by the Chosen One shortly after the fall of the Oil Rig, leaving him the only survivor. From what he understood, Moreno had been passionate before, and every lost life had driven him deeper into that hole.

However, that pity could not win against the cold feeling in the pit of his stomach that said that Moreno was...a problem. Someone he'd almost certainly need to dispose of someday. And wasn't it just chilling how easily he was able to think that about someone who'd helped raise him? Moreno, who was far enough gone that he would rather execute Judah than consider an option where no one died, could not realistically be made to see reason.

"How do you feel about him?" Six asked, as if he were psychic. Arcade sighed through his nose.

"He's a very powerful combatant," he said. "And he's exactly the right kind of self-assured that means he can put his experience to full use. I've never seen him lose."

"Pardner, those're betting odds, not feelings," Six said. "How do you _feel_ about 'im?"

Nothing slipped past this man, huh. "That I'm not looking forward to seeing him again."

It was likely, almost certain, that one or both of them would not survive that encounter.

"Well, that ain't exactly a satisfactory answer, but I also ain't gonna pry," Six finally said, with a light shrug. "The Enclave seems like a cozy place."

Well, that was bewildering to hear from a waster. "What makes you say that?"

"You guys seem to care about each other a lot. It's cute. That sort of thing's harder to come by out in the wasteland - you learn to get tough real fast. It's you two, vault dwellers, and some of the Followers I've seen acting that way, although…"

He grinned a little. "I do get the feeling each and every one of you's dangerous. Ready to kill, I s'pose?"

Arcade hoped he wasn't casting suspicion. "I don't like killing, the loss of human life," he said, firmly.

"Only crazy people do," Six said. "But liking it's one thing - what I mean is, you're _ready_ to. Y'ain't let down your guard none the whole time I ever knew you - which, granted, ain't long, but - "

All of a sudden, he threw a punch. Since it came from nowhere, it was weak and went wide, but regardless, Arcade's body reacted, automatically widening his stance and catching Six's wrist, his other hand coming up to protect his vitals. His mind ran through the whole checklist of how to respond before he realized there was no follow-up. His heart rate had shot up immediately, and at his bewildered expression, Six grinned.

"See, like that. You're ready for me to turn on you."

Arcade let go. "Please don't surprise me like that."

"All I'm saying is, it sets me right on edge, too. S'what I mean about 'inviting' problems."

Arcade squeezed his eyes shut and groaned. "Yes, you've made your point. Please don't surprise me like that again."

Six tilted his head. "Do you think I'm gonna? Turn on you, I mean."

"Well, it's always a possibility, isn't it?" Arcade pointed out. "The Enclave garner suspicion by their very existence, and several groups outright want us wiped out. Furthermore, my policies aren't exactly popular with your inner circle. What real assurance do I have that you won't?"

"Well, we're friends, ain't we?"

Arcade gave a bitter snort. "I wish that could be enough."

But as long as he had lives, dozens of lives (and potentially hundreds if he counted New Vegas) riding on his shoulders, he couldn't afford to only plan for tea parties and best-case scenarios. Six just gave him a funny, pitying look, and the rest of their walk was mostly in silence.

Novac took to the proposed alliance well. With Legion encroachment being a near-constant threat, they liked the idea of being able to call on the Strip for backup, and agreed to the deal in exchange for a shipment of guns and ammo, which was perfectly within New Vegas's capabilities. While there, Six introduced him to a small band of ghouls from a ghoul cult that had repaired and launched several rockets out of Repconn's facilities up north (Arcade had decided not to think too hard about it) and he smiled and shook their hands and asked one of them to carry a message down south to Raul and Lily with the intel they'd been provided. They stayed the night and moved on the morning after.

"So you think we should hit up the Boomers or no?" Six asked. "If you're with me, they won't shoot you, probably. Veronica's been up that way before with me. And she wasn't even exo-communicated from the Brotherhood then!"

"'Excommunicated,'" Arcade corrected. Still, he grimaced. He didn't particularly want to provoke them, even though Six had faith in them, but at the same time, they sat on the New Vegas map like a malignant tumor. Sure, they were self-sufficient, but what if something ever happened to their farms? If they tried to raid New Vegas's, which would also be based up north, then they'd have the overwhelming advantage, and who knew how many Securitrons and lives they'd lose.

But then he thought maybe that was paranoid of him. Six being on friendly terms with what felt like every single person on the planet (dully, Arcade realized he was even friends with a rogue Enclave sect), maybe he ought to trust in his "friendship."

"We might as well," Arcade finally said. "And if something goes wrong, better we're both there than you're there alone. I still have some tricks up my sleeve."

Six smiled at him and the two went north. Within a day, they'd entered the territory patrolled by Securitrons, and on the evening of the second, they approached the Boomers' turf. The ground outside their base was covered in craters and long-dead corpses, making Arcade pale with nervousness, but nothing happened to them on the way up to the gates, and a woman at the door dressed in decorated vault leathers let them in. She rudely jut her chin out at Arcade.

"Who's the new savage, Savage?" she asked, brusquely.

"Aw, don't worry none," Six said. "He's my friend, helping me with numbers and money."

"Savage?" Arcade asked, feeling somewhat affronted.

She rolled her eyes at him, which did not help. " _You,"_ she said, like she was speaking to a child. "Savage."

"Don't mind it none, Arcade," Six said, nudging him with his elbow. "That's just what they call outsiders."

"Well…I see." He decided it wasn't worth it to argue with someone who had an RPG strapped to their back.

"We let Mother Pearl know you'd come," the woman said. "You'd better say hello to her before you do anything else."

"'Course, Raquel. Good t' see you as always." He tipped his hat. She huffed, returning to her post, and Six led Arcade inside. 

"Raquel's a bit thorney, but that's just 'cause she cares," Six explained. "The Boomers are actually pretty nice folk once you get to know 'em - like most vault dwellers."

"Uh-huh," Arcade nodded, unconvinced. He looked around, taking in the grounds of the AFB. He'd studied Nellis before, part of every soldier's basic training, but seeing it in person, in its current decrepit state, was much different from seeing black-and-white pre-war photos and top-down layout diagrams. On their way into Nevada, they had actually cleaned the base of its energy weapons, but with limited personnel and limited transport vehicles, they could only recover that much. By the time they were considering another scavenging run, the Boomers had already taken it over.

Here and there, Mr. Handys patrolled, patched up with slapdash metal plating. They were a familiar sight, so despite the eyes he could feel watching his every move, he felt himself relax somewhat.

They arrived shortly at what would be the CO's quarters, and Six knocked before opening the door. A smiling old woman seated at the desk at the back greeted them as they entered.

"Hello, child!" She said, sweetly, then turned her gaze on Arcade, where it remained even as she continued speaking to Six. "You haven't visited since before the battle! But judging by the radio chatter, you've been busy, so Mother Pearl doesn't blame you. How was the show we put on for you?"

Six smiled, somehow totally at ease."Mother Pearl, I can honestly say that I'll never forget that sight for as long as I live."

She seemed satisfied with his answer, so she moved on to the _real_ topic at hand. "Who's your friend, now?"

"This is Arcade," Six said. "He's our financial advisor. Real politician, this guy, but he's - well, you know. Harmless, physically."

Pearl nodded, some of the tension leaving her shoulders. Seemed she was worried he posed a threat to her people. He took his hat off and pressed it to his chest, giving a small bow of respect. (Old-fashioned, but vault dwellers grew up on the same films he did, so he hoped she'd recognize the gesture.)

"It's a pleasure to meet you," he said. "I saw the fields on the way in, and they looked very healthy. I can tell that this is a well-managed community."

Her smile widened, but he couldn't tell exactly how much impact he'd made.

"Your politician's quite the smooth talker," she said, finally turning her eyes back to Six. "Well then. I don't suppose the two of you came all the way out here just to say hello. And no one in the Wasteland comes to the Boomers not wanting something. Though, since it's you, Six, we'd be happy to at least hear you out."

"Many thanks, pardner," Six said, easily. Just as easily, he pulled up a chair at the desk, and Arcade, feeling awkward, stiffly followed suit.

"So my advisor here, Arcade, he's been pushin' me to go around 'codifying' alliances with all the towns what want to stay independent from the Legion an' the NCR, so that's what we're here for today."

Arcade saw Pearl's expression change as Six spoke. She leaned in a little, eyes attentive, body stiffening. It wasn't aggressive or wary, but it was far more of an interest than he was expecting her to have, since by all accounts Nellis appeared to be self-sufficient, and didn't particularly need any New Vegas support.

Six outlined the details of their alliance, though he was careful not to pressure Pearl to sign up, and Pearl's eyes narrowed when he mentioned the free pass recognized traders would receive - this reaction _was_ hostile, however.

"I'm very sorry to say this, Six, but we can't abide by those last couple tenements. I don't think the younglings are ready for that much contact with the outside."

Six shrugged. "Naw, we figured as much. But we at least wanted y'all to know this was goin' 'round, in case you felt like signin' on later."

Pearl nodded. "We appreciate the news, at least."

It seemed like she wanted to say more, so there was a long, awkward silence as she gathered her thoughts. Finally, she leaned forward a little, volume dropping. 

"I don't think it's a bad thing to get the younglings more used to the idea of outsiders," she said. "Any way for us to get the traders, remotely? Like a...hm…" she paused, trying to remember the word. "Catalogue, yes, that was it. If we could receive a catalogue of items, send back what we'd like along with payment, then have one or two people deliver only that, instead of a whole caravan?"

Immediately, Arcade inserted himself into the conversation, before Six could answer.

"I believe something like that may be possible," he said, "but I'd need some time to discuss the logistics with Six since there are some procedures there that conflict with our current plans. Do you mind if we take some time to discuss this?"

"Of course. How long will you need?"

Arcade glanced at the setting sun outside the dusty windows. "Definitely the night at least, since it requires shuffling several key resources around. Possibly another day…"

He did his best to sound apologetic. Pearl nodded. "Well, that's fine. We were going to ask if you wanted to stay the night anyways, since after all it's getting late. Then how about we reconvene after lunch tomorrow? If you still need more time, just let me know. I'll be either here or at the schoolhouse."

"Of course," Arcade said, smiling. "Thank you so much for your hospitality, ma'am."

"Oh, Pearl or Mother Pearl is fine," she said. "Have a good night, now. I'll let the younglings know to let you two have a share of food if you'd like it starting tomorrow - but I warn you, breakfast is bright and early, and we don't offer brunch."

Arcade nodded, thanked her again, and then dragged Six out of there fast enough that he couldn't ruin Arcade's lie. Once they were sufficiently out of earshot, Six stopped him.

"So what was that about, pardner?"

Arcade looked to make sure no one was listening, then stepped closer and dropped his voice down to a loud whisper. "With everything we know about the Boomers, they're self-sufficient. They'd have no need for traders, so why was Pearl so interested in them?"

Six tilted his head. "Mother Pearl's been advocatin' for lettin' a bit of the outside in. So far, 's just been me an' my posse."

Arcade brought his hand to his chin. "That could be it," he muttered, "but it doesn't feel that way to me. She wanted _trade._ She suggested a compromise so she could get _trade_ without _people._ That means there's trouble in paradise. They aren't as self-sufficient as they want to appear."

He raised his eyes to Six. "What do the Boomers want to trade for? I bought us time to investigate. If we know that, we'll have a weakness in hand…"

He trailed off as he realized how evil he was sounding. Clearing his throat, he tried again.

"The Boomers are potentially dangerous, so I'd feel safer knowing what _exactly_ it is they want, even if we do nothing with that information. _Scientia potentia est_ \- knowledge is power."

Six frowned. "Well, I know they were short some scrap metal - no one's allowed outside to scavenge. But listen, Arcade, it seems dirty to trick Mother Pearl like that."

"...You're right. It was." Now that his actions had been thrown into sharp relief, he felt a sinking stone of guilt in his gut. He'd been so caught up in the elation of scheming that he'd forgotten something so fundamental as basic respect… 

"I'm sorry."

Six studied him for a moment, then turned away. "What's done is done, I s'pose. If we'd just asked, I'm sure she woulda told us. The Boomers don't do the sort of political conspiracy shit you do; like I said, they're nice folks. Honest folks."

Well, that _really_ made him feel awful. He didn't even have anything to say, really, since anything he _could_ say would be too cheap to cover his sin. 

At length, Six spoke again, looking northward toward the mountain range.

"A few years back, I helped run Happy Trails up north," he said. "While we was up there, we ran into a problem with some local tribals. See, there's this valley up that way that's just gorgeous. Green grass, green trees, clean water - my first time seein' a fish, even, though it darted away 'fore I could get a good look at it. The tribe that had been livin' there hadn't known about stuff like war or hunger for at least a couple generations, but they were 'bout to get chased out by another tribe who were tryin' to earn the Legion's favor. They were bein' looked after by a couple'a mormon missionaries from further up north, one ex-Legion himself, and they had different ideas on what to do. The ex-Legion guy, he wanted to teach the tribe how to fight so they could protect their little valley, and the other wanted 'em to stay 'pure' an' evacuate them somewhere so they'd never have to learn about fightin', cruelty. By happenstance, I wound up bein' the one what had to settle the matter."

Arcade swallowed. "What did you choose?"

Six gave him a wry smile. "I told 'em to stay and fight. No-brainer, right? Even if they did evac, one day, they'd have to learn fightin' - either when their food ran out or when Legion or NCR found 'em. The mormon who wanted to evacuate them sure did give me an earful about it, though. And to his credit, he was right that the tribe weren't never the same after that. Used to be anyone who went up that way would be treated like part of the family; nowadays, you get an armed escort 'less you've already proven yourself."

He closed his eyes. "I don't think I made the wrong choice, an' I'd make it again. So I don't begrudge you for makin' yours, neither. Somethin' you said that really stuck with me was that the NCR's already gamblin' lives to earn political advantages...you're right about that, pardner. Legion does jus' the same. I've seen enough tribals get eaten up by the two o' them to know that we can't win 'less we're willing to get our hands dirty, too. I think it was probably the same way 'fore the war - the enemy had nukes so we needed to have nukes, an' we had nukes so they needed nukes, and y'all Enclave folks who still remember those days are probably still livin' afraid of nukes."

He scratched the back of his neck. "I dunno what I'm tryn' to say, exactly...I guess mostly jus' that livin' a-feared of nukes don't seem like a good way to live."

"You're a good man, Six." The very definition. What Arcade had striven to be. Only now did he realize how far he'd strayed.

"Well, that's all. Since things already turned out this way, I'll leave it to you. If it were me in your shoes, though, I'd feel I owed Mother Pearl an apology."

Arcade swallowed. He couldn't say he didn't feel the same. He just didn't know if that would ever be enough.

"Indeed."

* * *

Late that night, he found he couldn't sleep, for all his back-and-forth pontificating and ruminating on his own place in this world and how to proceed. He needed water; his throat was dry. The Boomers, he remembered, had launched an attack on the NCR when the NCR had tried to cut them off, so they sourced from Lake Mead. Surely, he could find a spigot around here somewhere.

He could probably get the location of one by just asking one of the Mr. Handys still out on patrol, but frankly, he could also use the walk. Maybe it'd clear his mind. 

It was as he wandered around the hangars, looking for a conveniently opened door, that he heard footsteps behind him and immediately dropped into combat stance, sidling up against the hangar's metal walls with his gun in his hand. When his would-be assailants rounded the corner, however, and Arcade realized it was a gaggle of children, who were just as surprised to see him as he was to see them, he felt deeply, deeply ashamed as he holstered his gun.

"It's the new Savage," one of the children gaped at him. 

"Uh, hello," Arcade said.

"Wh-what do we do?" asked another, ignoring him. It struck Arcade that these kids had a familiar expression on their faces, one he recognized. They were looking very "oh-crap-big-brother-Arcade-caught-us-sneaking-into-the-rec-room-after-curfew." He bent down at his knees to get closer to their eye level.

"Heya," he said. "Do the adults know you're out here this late at night?"

The kids froze, slack-jawed. Busted.

He grinned. "I promise not to tell on you if you tell me what you're up to."

His standard deal. After all, kids were going to do whatever stupid thing kids wanted to do; better to tag along and keep an eye on them than to outright try to ban their stupid behavior.

"You promise?"

"Cross my heart."

The kids gave each other nervous glances, and then the leader, a boy with short-cropped brown hair, took him up on the offer.

"We're gonna go look at the 'zerves," he said. He pointed at one of the girls. "Mindy said she heard them saying we might not be able to do our coming of age ceremony and we wanted to go check."

There were, as per usual when dealing with kids, a lot of assumed common knowledge. Rather than pry, though, Arcade just nodded like he saw the whole picture. "Makes sense. And why can't the adults know we're sneaking around like this?"

One of the kids let out a nervous giggle. "We're not allowed to go to the 'zerves on our own," she said. "Since we still gotta learn how to use it, and it can go boom if we touch it before we learn."

Okay, it seemed like it was actually a very good idea for Arcade to come along with them, actually. He nodded again, leaning back on his haunches. "So the 'zerves are inside the hangar?"

"Yep," the leader said, nodding. "Pete over there has the key cuz he's Keeper of the Story."

Pete seemed like he didn't really want to be here.

"But Jack, Loyal, and Janet are in there," he said, nervously. 

"We won't wake them up if we're quiet."

Arcade tilted his head. "Excuse me. Can I say something?"

The leader gave him a suspicious look, then - emulating the girl at the gate - went "speak, Savage" in a pompous adult way.

From his boot, Arcade unhooked the sheath of his combat knife, and drew a messy diagram of the hangar in the dirt. The internal structure of these things was relatively standard, and aside from walls being knocked out and makeshift ones being constructed, it couldn't be too different. The kids watched with rapt attention.

"We're here," Arcade said, tapping a location outside the hangar, then drew an indication of the door. "Where are the 'zerves?"

One of the girls looked at the map with big eyes, then pointed to a box in the top left - what would normally be an air control room. "Here."

"And how about Jack, Loyal, and Janet?"

The girl pointed out which rooms they were staying in, and Arcade nodded.

"Okay. I think it is entirely possible to not wake them up. Do you know if the security system is active?"

One of the kids frowned. They murmured amongst each other, unsure. Arcade rephrased the question.

"Has anyone tried to sneak in before and set off flashing red lights and a loud alarm?"

"Oh," the leader said. "Yeah. Someone tried to get a midnight snack once and it woke us all up."

"Well, that's a problem, since it'll almost definitely go off if you try to get to the 'zerves room," Arcade said, stroking his chin. "It's a good thing you have me here. I know how to temporarily deactivate the security. If you let me in first, I can go do that, and then I can let you in."

The kids looked up at him with wide eyes. "How can we trust you, Savage?" the leader asked, though his expression was sparkling and hopeful. Arcade grinned.

"Well, because if I get caught, I'll let you pin the blame on me. How about that? You guys were just trying to stop the Savage. If you tell your parents that, you won't get in trouble."

They were clearly blown away by the efficacy of this plan, which completely removed all risk from their shoulders, and Arcade couldn't help but grin at their slack-jawed expressions. This reminded him of the kids back home and all their midnight adventures. And all the blame he'd voluntarily shouldered. There was a reason the kids still trusted him as closely as they did, even now that they were all grown up.

In short order, Pete unlocked the door for him, and with a wink, Arcade slipped inside. His steps were quiet - practiced - against the metal floor as he snuck his way down to the security room. Embedded in the wall was a keypad, but the door itself had been ripped out and replaced with a makeshift metal gate held shut by a padlock, and Arcade couldn't help but find the crudeness charming.

Lockpicking sets were standard-issue for scouts, but Arcade was not a scout, so his tools were much more crude. All the same, a couple metal wires were all he _needed,_ and the lock popped open with minimal fuss. He tucked it into his pocket and slid inside.

The console at the far end was familiar to him. It was a government model, far more complex than something issued to a normal vault, its video feeds all knocked out with age. The feature he was looking for that set it apart from civilian models, however, was still intact.

He pulled out the executive fob from deep within his jacket, holding it up to the scanner on the side of the machine. After a brief loading screen, he was taken to the administrator controls, which appeared to have been left untouched from before the war.

He set the system to reboot, which would buy them about an hour. If they left without a trace, there'd be no need to check the night's records, so it was a perfect crime, honestly.

On his way out, he replaced the padlock, then poked his head outside. 

"We have an hour," he whispered. "Keep quiet, now."

The kids grinned, all nervous and excited, but unless they started screaming and running, it really wasn't going to be an issue. From what Arcade could tell, the metal, double-layered doors to the adults' rooms were still fully intact, so it was unlikely for them to hear several pairs of light feet tapping across the hallway.

One by one, he guided the kids inside, and they sneaked into the hangar proper. Arcade had to stifle a noise of wonderment when he saw the bomber up close. Somehow, it'd slipped his mind that this was a _hangar_ and the Boomers had a _plane._ It really was a beautiful sight. If he weren't busy chasing after the children, he'd probably have run his hand along its metal side.

In any case, the kids led him to the door to the 'zerves, which opened automatically without tripping the alarms. However, he was stopped at the door.

"Savages not allowed," said the leader. Arcade tilted his head and pretended to look sad. 

"Even after how much I helped you?" he asked. The kid looked uncomfortable, glancing to the other kids for help.

"Um…"

"Well…"

"How about if you have someone keep an eye on me so I don't touch anything?"

There was some murmured deliberation, and then the kids agreed that this was a good plan and he was let inside.

Then, he finally figured out that what the kids meant by "'zerves" was _ammunition reserves._ Wall to wall, stacked on every desk, was ammunition crates. So _that_ was why it could potentially go boom…Arcade suddenly felt very nervous.

"What's the plan, sir?" he asked, carefully.

The leader thought about it. "Hm...it takes about three crates to do a coming of age. So I think we should count to see if there's three full crates."

"So we won't be actually touching the rockets?"

"No, it might make them explode and then everyone will know we were in here," he said. Arcade felt deeply relieved.

"It sounds like a good plan. I'll make sure not to touch anything and keep watch on the time so we can leave before the hour is up."

And so the children busied themselves with rifling through the crates, calling out full or empty. Despite how many _crates_ there were, there was a disheartening amount of "empty"'s until they made their way down to the far corner, when a girl excitedly called out the first "full!" and got shushed. From there, two more "full"s were easily discovered, all in the far corner, and, satisfied, the kids decided to sneak back out, feeling proud of themselves as Pete locked the door shut again behind them.

"See, Mindy?" the leader said, once they were back outside and could talk more freely. "There's nothing to be worried about."

"Yeah, yeah," she groused, then yawned. "I'm sleepy."

"Me too," said a third kid. Then a fourth, fifth, and they decided unanimously to go back to bed.

"Thanks for your help, Savage," the leader said, yawning. "You should go to sleep, too."

"You're correct. Have a good night."

He smiled as he waved good-bye, but his expression dropped as soon as he was left alone again. He hadn't been meaning to, but he'd just stumbled upon his answer - for what reason the Boomers were considering trade with the outside world.

They were running out of ammo. For a tribe whose identity revolved around explosives, they were dangerously low. It made total sense once he put it all together. The vault the Boomers came from had been armed to the teeth, sure, and this AFB had similarly housed a large number of explosives, but the Boomers were so liberal with their usage - and the crafting of replacements so nigh-impossible in the wasteland - that it made total sense that they were running low. Their reputation preceded them, so no one had tried to _check._ However, that reputation being one of their major defenses, the Boomers were liable to waste even more ammunition in order to continue projecting an image of having unlimited supply.

With this sort of information, and the fact that Mother Pearl was shrewd enough to understand they had to compromise with the outside world to alleviate the issue, to be honest, Arcade could grab the Boomers by the neck. There was a lot they had to offer - farms, knowledge, the VR training pods he saw in the hangar, and an on-location solar power plant - but…

But, those kids had him feeling very homesick all of a sudden.

The next morning, he pulled Six aside to tell him about the night's findings. Six blinked at him. Then he broke out into a big smile.

"You're good at taking care of kids, huh?"

Which was very irrelevant right now.

"Focus, Six. We've discovered one of the Boomers' critical weaknesses."

"Yeah. Reckon you came up with some evil plan you're 'bout to tell me, too."

Arcade paused. "Well, maybe it's evil," he admitted. "But I was thinking perhaps they'd be open to the idea of not necessarily letting people _in,_ but loaning people _out."_

"What fer?"

"Well, as things currently stand, what the Boomers are uniquely positioned to offer is personnel. Personnel with experience maintaining and repairing pre-war equipment, a level of expertise very rare in the wasteland, and with farming and public works in wasteland conditions. On the flip side, what they _want -_ explosive ammunition - is something New Vegas has in egregious excess, as all Securitrons are armed with such. However, even then, the speed at which the Boomers deplete their supply is so fast that I wouldn't be comfortable providing them with the amount they'll want. After all, even though we have stockpiles and stockpiles, it's still a scarce, finite resource as we lack the means to produce more."

He gave Six a serious look. "So I think we should accept their terms of ordering by catalogue, but shouldn't explosive rounds on the catalog list. We wouldn't sell those to anyone else, anyway; they're supremely valuable, and in the hands of the NCR or Legion, they'd be used against us. However, we will hire Boomer personnel as educators and overseers, paid for by explosive rounds, but an amount that won't meet their demands - we can do this because they'll realize it's a better deal than anywhere else will provide, because they'll quickly find that such ammunition is even rarer and more closely guarded in NCR or Legion territory. This will allow them to continue their cultural traditions, but they will have to compromise by reducing their consumption, while at the same time forging stronger connections with the outside world, as the amount of ammunition they receive is directly tied to the personnel they spare."

It was still "evil" in that they had the means to provide what the Boomers wanted - practically a monopoly - but were withholding it at the cost of human labor. In one sense, it was a fair trade, in another, it was exploiting their culture in order to control their actions. Arcade nervously watched Six's expression, unable to read what he was thinking under his wide-brimmed hat, but finally, Six gave a nod.

"Not as bad as I was expectin'," he admitted, smiling. "I thought you were gonna hold the rounds hostage to force 'em to open all the way up."

"Well, the thought crossed my mind, but…"

"No no, don't ruin it. Let's just enjoy the nice sentiments." Six thought about it. "I don't think Mother Pearl'll be too happy with this, but maybe she'll say yes if we sell it as valuable experience for the members she loans out, 'specially since we're puttin' them in charge of stuff."

He gave Arcade a wry look. "Jus' let me do the talking, alright, pardner? I like this plan, actually. Feels kinda win-win, even if it ain't _exactly_ the win the Boomers're lookin' for."

Finally, he gave Arcade a hearty slap on the back, nearly knocking the wind from him. His grin was wide as Arcade readjusted his glasses.

"Nice work."

* * *

Mother Pearl did, indeed, seem displeased with the new terms Six had for her, crossing her arms and sitting back in her chair. 

"This is a big thing you're askin' of us, Outsider," she said, unhappily. "And it'd mean breaking one of our most sacred rules. In fact, the only reason I don't chase you out is because it's you, and I know you have our interests at heart."

"'Course," Six said, easily, because he meant it. "If all things were right in the world, I'd have my land, you'd have yours, and no one'd need to get all up in anyone's business but their own."

Mother Pearl let out a laugh. "Well, isn't that the truth. Indeed, no outsiders would need to get blown up if they didn't intrude on Boomer lands. But you want us in your business, now?"

"Well, Mother Pearl, unfortunately, all ain't right with the world."

"Indeed," she said. She took another moment to mull things over, her wrinkled face scrunching up in concern, and Arcade wondered how he'd ever thought of these people as mutants when every action they took was so intimately human and familiar.

"I have a condition," she said, gravely.

"Let's hear it."

"I want you to keep my children safe. As safe as you possibly can. I don't want them anywhere near the battlefield; I don't want them fighting your fights. If it's just to lend expertise starting farms or repairing equipment, those are all things we can do on the backlines, without anyone getting hurt, isn't that so?"

Six smiled at her. "Of course. The farms and the Dam are all up north an' east, so they won't be roamin' far, and whole area's crawling with Securitrons, which is the best safety we can provide. Honestly, they can probably still spend weekends at Nellis, I think. They'll be close enough by."

Mother Pearl nodded. "Good, good...it'll take a while to convince the youngers, you understand. We'll need some time, and I can't guarantee you'll be welcome next time you visit. If enough people here take enough issue with it, then what Mother Pearl thinks might not matter."

Still, she gave him a smile. "But I have a feeling it'll work out. This seems like it's best for us, too, even if it don't feel that way."

Finally, she turned to Arcade, a cheeky smile on her face. "The children wanted me to pass a message along to you. They say, 'play with us again soon!'"

* * *

Several days more of roughing it in the Wasteland, and they were back up in Jacobstown's mountain retreat, again greeted at the gate by Marcus. Negotiations were smooth as silk, since the Super Mutants were already eager to trade and more than happy to accept a token of genuine acceptance and goodwill from New Vegas, even if Securitrons probably couldn't make it up the mountainside, anyway. They stayed the night up there, of course, Arcade sheepishly saying hello to Dr. Henry, who looked annoyed that he was back so soon. He spent the evening as a lab technician, but they were off with the morning sun guiding them back east, down the mountain.

Despite Arcade's best efforts, Six could not be persuaded to leave the Raiders to a Securitron squadron, so Arcade had sighed and asked to call upon a scout for help. Six had agreed, and so it was that they met with Anne-Marie, a surly young girl with red hair dyed black and thick smatterings of freckles waiting for them at the base of the mountain.

"Hello, I'm Six," Six said, shaking her hand and smiling. Despite her glum nature, she tried to smile back.

"I'm Anne-Marie. Just call me Annie."

She turned to Arcade. "Big fish you caught, Arcade. Didn't think you could do it; figured I'd hafta send what was left of you back to base in a box."

Arcade snorted. "Thank you for the vote of confidence, Annie."

"If I don't say it, no one else will." She crossed her arms. "Alright. What do you need me for?"

"We're taking on the raiders camped out down at Bonnie Springs," Six said.

Annie stared at him.

"Somethin' on my face?"

"Don't you have, like, a robot army?" she asked. "It's like, maybe eight to ten guys down there. Why are you putting yourself in bullet range?"

"Believe me, Annie, I've already asked," Arcade said. "It wouldn't be fair to the raiders, apparently."

"If you're gonna take a man's life, look 'im in the eyes when you do," Six said, like it was the simplest thing in the world. "It don't weigh on my conscience none to kill raiders, but they're still human as you or me. Neither of you two's killed a man before, yeah?"

Both Arcade _and_ Annie were made uncomfortable by that assessment, Arcade especially.

"I have," Annie said, grimly. "Once."

Arcade froze. "Annie?"

"What?" There was venom in her voice. "He was a drunk, or on chems, or something. Followed me as I left a saloon, made it clear what he was intending, so I - did what I had to do."

"I…" Arcade swallowed. "I'm sorry to hear that."

She glared and gave a haughty toss of her hair. "Don't be. The waster's right. You should kill someone, Arcade, and look them in the eyes when you do it. It's different from our sims...a lot different."

Her fingers dug into her arm. "And easy, too. A lot easier than I thought it'd be."

The air had turned heavy and grim, Arcade at a loss for words. They weren't going to get out of this unscathed, were they? Despite all that he'd tried to protect these kids, he was truly such a powerless and weak individual, unable to do anything for Annie at all.

In any case, she wasn't one for sentimentality, so she quickly looked back up with her sharp, careful eyes.

"So you wanna take on Bonnie Springs," she said, shifting her weight to the other leg. "Yeah, okay. With two Enclave soldiers by your side, you'd _better_ be able to smoke a gang of loud idiots like that. Like I said, it's eight to ten guys. Sometimes more or less depending on if they've got someone coming in from the main Viper headquarters, which are up near Westside, or vice versa. Means we only need to kill about three idiots each - easy-peasy."

It was, as usual, impossible to tell exactly how sarcastic she was, just that she was so dry she could dessicate a cactus. 

"They can see you coming from miles away no matter what direction you're coming from, so I recommend getting close at night and starting the fight during the day. Plenty of places to hide, even camp the night, plus they get drunk as shit as soon as it's dark out, patrolling guards included."

She shrugged. "Or you can start shooting then, I guess. But I figure the reason Arcade hasn't _already_ killed or captured you is because there's no point, so let's not pick fights where you're likely to die from stepping on a rusty nail 'cause you can't see shit."

"A real charmer, this one," Six grinned. "You could tell me she grew up out here and I'd be none the wiser."

Annie rolled her eyes. "That's why I'm a scout. _Duh."_

Six laughed, and Arcade was very thankful that he found her behavior amusing and not abrasive. 

"Anyway," she said, "just as well we're waiting 'til evening to get close, since we need a detour anyway to pick up my _real_ weapon." 

She patted the pistol on her hip. "This piece of shit can kill a man, sure, but what I wouldn't give for power armor and a gatling laser. Know what I mean?"

"No," Arcade said, firmly, because he didn't much support glorifying the killing of others, preferring to view it as a grim necessity at best.

"Not at all," Six chirped, carefree, because he had no fucking clue what the hell she was on about.

Annie sighed. "God I miss home base."

* * *

From inside the hollowed husk of a tree, Annie pulled out a guitar case. From out of _that,_ she assembled together a standard-issue M72 Mkii gauss rifle (a converted form of the standard M72, designed to shoot larger slugs that fractured on impact). She kissed the coils once the whole thing was assembled, and Arcade gave her a dubious look.

"What?" she asked, annoyed.

"Is a gauss rifle _really_ necessary?"

Six looked pleasantly between them. "What'sa matter? All I know is that's a crazy gun I ain't never seen before."

Annie heaved a sigh. _"Fine,"_ she said, taking it apart again. Arcade sighed, too.

"The .50 pyrrhotite slugs a gauss rifle takes are almost impossible to manufacture," Arcade said. "Each round has its own miniaturized battery in order to power the magnetic coils. At least to some extent, energy cells are relatively standardized, so they're easier to recycle. Making a gauss round battery, meanwhile, requires specialized equipment, and the main force took the project that would allow them to be charged with traditional energy cells up east with them."

"That what the weird barrel is?" Six asked. "That's cool. I think I heard somethin' about high-rankin' NCR officials gettin' to use magnetic guns."

"Stolen from _us,"_ Annie grumbled, locking the case again and stashing it back in. "And probably maintained like shit. I bet most of 'em are just decoration nowadays."

"Are they strong?" Six asked. Annie looked at him like he was stupid.

"They're made to pierce power armor. Specifically designed to be anti-Brotherhood. What do you _think?"_

"Hey, I was just askin'. I think it's a real shame you get a toy that nice an' can't even use it. Though if I had to say, it almost feels unfair to the gun to use it on a buncha knucklehead raiders."

Annie grumbled. "Glad someone gets it."

She pulled out a second case, this one more obviously made for a gun, and assembled together a standard-issue laser rifle. 

"This good for you, prissy?" she asked Arcade. Arcade snorted.

"Better. I question why you didn't just bring an M16, however..."

Annie gave him a stink-eye. "Shut up. I don't want to hear that coming from _you,_ Mr. Ran-Away-With-The-Prototype."

"That's the cleanest damn laser rifle I ever seen," Six whistled, appreciatively. "I can never get used to energy weapons, though. Always feels like I'm shootin' a toy."

"I keep saying so, but no one listens to me," Annie grumbled. "Arcade here thinks recoil's _uncouth."_

"Hey, I never said that," Arcade protested.

"Yeah you did. 'Barbaric.' 'I hate shooting analog guns, the recoil feels so barbaric.'"

Six gave a hearty laugh. "He _does_ talk just like that, don't he!"

"I don't," Arcade protested, folding his arms. "It's just - I just find it - ironic, that long-range weapons need such a high strength requirement. That's what I meant."

"Sure it was," Annie said, finally flashing him a little smile. "Missed you, Arcade."

* * *

They hid out among the crags and trees until nightfall, then booked it for the shabby town of Bonnie Springs under the cover of darkness, guided by nothing more than moonlight. Both Arcade and Annie had flashlights, while Six carried a Pip-Boy on his wrist ( _was_ it a Pip-Boy? It was covered in rhinestones), but if they turned them on, they might as well shine a beacon directly overhead to alert the Vipers of their presence.

Between the three of them, Six was easily the loudest, if only for the spurs on his shoes that jangled with his every step. Still, in spite of that, the fact that they came from the direction of the mountains meant that security was not very tight in their direction, and it wasn't long before they'd passed the city border and were now scouting for a place to spend the night.

Annie pointed out the remains of a water tower. "If I were smart," she said, "I'd have someone up there. These are raiders, so they might not be that smart. Still, we should find a place where a sniper there wouldn't be able to see us. When the fighting starts, you can leave 'em to me."

"Got it," Six said, and then tilted his head. "Hey, don't it seem quiet to you?"

"It's late at night, and they party themselves to sleep," Annie said. "We definitely saw 'em moving around during the day through the binoculars."

"Naw, naw. I mean, they're still awake, look."

He pointed up over the rooftops, where indeed they could see the glow of light from a house with the lights still on. "Huh," Annie said. She stroked her chin, then turned back toward the two of them. 

"I'll go see what's happening," she said, pulling out her sidearm. "The two of you stay put, unless you hear the sound of fighting."

"Let me come with you," Six offered immediately, but Annie gave him a glare.

"No, dumbass. Do you have any idea what 'stealth' even means? Let the scout do some scouting."

"Hold on, Annie," Arcade said. “I have a stealth boy - "

"Who was it that got on my case earlier for not wasting ammo? Those things got limited charge, save it. You'll need it more'n me."

She flipped off her gun's safety. "Let me do my fucking job, Arcade."

Arcade swallowed, reluctantly slinging his pack back onto his back. "Okay."

With that, she slipped away, sticking close to the shadows of the decrepit buildings, and it wasn't long before they lost sight of her in the darkness. Arcade bit his lip and slid down onto his heels, staring after her even after he could no longer see her.

"She's a tough one," Six commented.

"Tough, or reckless?" Arcade asked.

"Tough. You look like a parent, Arcade."

Arcade gave a shaky laugh, finally pulling away to look Six in the eye. "I basically am," he said. "I was stuck on babysitting duty for most of my life. I don't know what I'd do if...if something happened to one of those kids. I'm the one who led them out here in the first place."

Six tilted his head. "You can't protect everyone. Can't save everyone, neither. And sometimes shit happens."

"I know."

"She's right, you know. You should let her do her job. Sounds to me like she's ready for it."

"I know."

There was a heavy and awkward silence for a moment, only the sound of creaking chains in the wind, the distant howls of coyotes, and, this close to the mountains, where some scarce life still flourished, crickets.

"Y'know, it's funny," Six said, finally breaking the silence. "I feel like I only ever get to see Arcade the person when you're around one o' those kids. Hey, tell me 'bout yourself."

"What's there to say? I'm a boring, stuffy, pretentious person."

"C'mon, Arcade," Six said, good-naturedly.

"What exactly do you want to know?"

"Yer hopes an' dreams. Dumb stuff you used to do as a kid. Who you looked up to an' why. Shit like that."

Arcade paused, looking up at the sky. In the far distance, the Strip's lights were still bright enough to blot out the stars, but he remembered seeing them in their full majesty once a long time ago. His breath had caught in his throat, then. He understood why it was that people could believe that God existed when he looked up at the arm of the Milky Way.

"I was...dearly beloved by my parents," Arcade said, because he might as well start from the beginning. "Their names were Mark and Delilah. They grew up together in one of the child-rearing bunkers we used to have scattered across what now belongs to the NCR. You can probably just think of them as being like vaults, but military. They transferred to Navarro after the Oil Rig fell and wasters started overrunning our outposts when they were teenagers." 

Six nodded. Arcade continued.

"I don't remember much of Navarro. I was five when we left. My father stayed behind to engage the NCR and Brotherhood forces, before self-destructing the base's reactor. Come to think of it, maybe he survived as a ghoul. Wouldn't that be interesting? Not that it'd matter...I think for an old-timer like him, if he woke up a ghoul, he might very well have finished the job himself."

Arcade gave a rueful grin. "After that, it was all hands on deck moving our gear east. Not an easy road, let me tell you. We moved at night, mostly, to try and avoid detection, and we'd go off desperately hunting for food and water during the day. I don't have any memories of going hungry or thirsty, but I know we lost people that way. All said, it took us three years. Part of that was because we were trying to lay low, and part of that was because we had so much we were bringing with us. My mother knew that we were nothing without our knowledge. Strip an Enclave soldier of their technology, and you get something very pitiable. After all, we lost people to coyotes, to radscorpion stings, to sheer exposure. Isn't that embarrassing?"

"Nah," Six said. "Yer only human. Stuff like that's been picking humans off since there were humans in these lands. Nature's a mighty frigid bitch, you know, and she often finds a way to getcha no matter who you are."

Arcade snorted. "Well said. In any case, we - "

At that moment, they heard footsteps, and the two of them shrank back and readied their weapons. However, no light accompanied those steps, so Arcade peeked out to find Annie approaching. He nearly shuddered with relief as she rejoined the group.

"You're not gonna fucking believe this," were the first words out of her mouth.

"What?" Arcade asked.

"They're having a meeting with the fucking _NCR._ I heard a bit of the conversation, but that meant getting real close, so I couldn't stay for long."

 _"NCR?"_ Six asked. "The hell are they doing out in Bonnie Springs?"

"The obvious," Arcade answered. "Do you remember our plan to arm the bandits along the I-80?"

"No way. You're tellin' me they're doin' the same here with our Vipers?"

"Or worse. With their resources and New Vegas's apparent incompetence, I'd be surprised if that's the end of their goals. More likely, they're here to establish a hidden outpost, an alliance…" Arcade gave Six a pointed look. "Or your assassination."

That gave Six tremendous pause. He gripped the barrel of his gun even tighter. "So what do we do?"

Arcade thought about it for a while, but was quickly interrupted by Annie nudging him with her elbow. "What is it?"

"You're doing it again."

He blinked. "Doing what again?"

"Thinking in your head and not out loud, where we can hear it."

"Oh." He cleared his throat. "Sorry about that. So, the way I see it, these talks must be early since there's been no significant movement - if there had been, Devin, Pascal, or Annie here would have noticed."

She nodded. "Never seen NCR up this far north before. No news from Sloan about them, either, and Sloan's small enough that if these guys passed through, they'd definitely have been noticed. So they're probably avoiding the settlements."

"Which means we could very well nip the problem in the bud by eradicating the Vipers, starting with the group camped out here, NCR spies included."

It was too dark to see Six's reaction, so he continued. "The downside there is that they'd know that we're on to them, which is at odds with the image we want to project of incompetence. And the problem with _that_ is that we _are_ incompetent. If they were able to slip this far into our territory with only basic precautions, imagine how untraceable they'd be if they were actually _trying_ to not get caught. If you're willing to let our scouts help you out, Six, we could very well turn this around in our favor."

"How so?"

"Now we know that they're working with the Vipers," Arcade said. "Now we know what direction they're coming from. As long as they think this route is clear and operational, it'll be the one they sink their resources into. We can feed them incorrect information, we can spy on their information route, and - when the time comes - we'll know exactly where to find them."

His expression turned grim. "The issue there is that we'll still essentially be inviting the enemy into our home. So you should think pretty long and hard about how you want to do things, Six, because yours is the life most at risk."

"But what would they get out of assassinating me?" Six asked, confusion in his voice. "I mean, if they want somethin', I already made clear I'm open to negotiations…"

"New Vegas is doomed," Annie said.

"Not while we're here," Arcade retorted. He cleared his throat again. "Six, currently, you're the face of New Vegas. Now that I've been with you to the other settlements, I'm pretty convinced you're an emotional lynchpin, too, and the whole country will mourn your loss. And it is very... _very_ easy to take advantage of someone in mourning."

"If you die," Annie added, "it's pretty likely the whole place'll fall into chaos. Well, more chaos. And then, if the NCR offers a shoulder to cry on, people will probably take it, because people are stupid."

"All they need is a foothold," Arcade said. "Convince one or two settlements to open their doors. Now they have enough sway in New Vegas that they can't be gotten rid of once your successor takes over the reins and calms down the crowds."

"And from there, it ain't too hard to pry the rest of New Vegas open," Six said, finally understanding. "But I thought the NCR senate couldn't rally enough support for another war?"

"Hence the secrecy," Arcade explained. "This is how I'd go about it if I were them, too. You don't need a vote to dispatch a small, elite unit of only a few people. If they don't succeed, well, the Kimball administration is _already_ screwed in the next election, so they can be scapegoated, and it's well-known that New Vegas lacks offensive options, so there's no chance of retaliation. That's the worst case scenario: that they fail and the plot is revealed. More likely, they'll simply fail, but can't be tied back to the NCR, in which case it'll be the Vipers to blame. In the best case scenario, and what they'd hope for if they're smart, then the assassination _does_ succeed, the crime won't be tied back to the NCR, everything we discussed previously will happen, they run a smear campaign on your person, and then, when the sentiment is just right, they reveal that they were the ones who assassinated the dictator of New Vegas as part of their campaign platform for re-election. A real feather in their cap."

There was a silence afterward, so he summed it up in simpler terms. "In other words, they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. And they're unlikely to stop using methods like these anytime soon because we have no means of retaliation."

"Alright...phew. That's pretty bad, ain't it? I'm in some deep shit now."

"Yeah," Arcade said.

"Uh-huh," Annie concurred.

"...You know," Six said, "it actually just occurred to me. All I have to go on right now is Annie's word, so if y'all wanted me to give your _spies_ a little foothold in, this is it, right?"

Arcade blanched. He was hoping Six wouldn't notice, honestly. That _wasn't_ the original goal of this situation, and the NCR probably _really was_ here, because he'd already conveyed to Devin that their policy was honesty, but there was no way he was about to pass up an opportunity to do exactly that. Now that he took a step back to self-reflect, he really _was_ an evil, scheming chancellor, wasn't he?

"If you want to go confirm it yourself, be my guest," Annie said, halfway offended he'd accuse her of lying. "Maybe you'll be able to recognize their guns or something when they start shooting."

"Annie," Arcade said, sharply, before turning back to Six. "If you want to, Six, we can hide in town an extra day or two to try and get some confirmation for you that we aren't making things up."

"Yeah," Six said, rubbing his chin. "But if it's you, Arcade, you'd be smart enough to set up your own guys to look all NCR-y, then call it a necessary sacrifice if they died, right?"

Arcade swallowed. "No, I couldn't…"

Even to his ears, his protest felt weak. Truly, he understood now what Six meant about inviting trouble. If Six was suspicious here, it was his own fault for making himself the kind of person one needed to be suspicious _of._

"Y'know what?" Six said at length. "I got just the thing for this."

Arcade and Annie both stiffened as he reached inside his duster, but he didn't seem to be pulling out a weapon. In fact, what he procured was so small, and the light so dim, that they couldn't even tell what it was.

"So how 'bout it? Heads or tails?"

"What?" Arcade asked, but Annie caught on faster.

"Heads," she said. 

There was a small metallic plink, and something went flying up into the air above their heads. Six caught it and slapped it on the back of his other hand.

No way. Were they deciding the fate of New Vegas on a _literal coin toss?_

"Come shine some light on this," Six said. "I can't see it in the dark."

Yep. Yes. Yep. That _was_ what they were doing. Sweet stars and stripes, that was what they were doing. The fact that it suited New Vegas so well was poetic enough that it almost, _almost_ distracted Arcade from the anguish in his soul. Annie, realizing that Arcade had been rendered useless, unstrapped her flashlight and scooted over.

On the back of Six's hand was a shiny, pre-war silver dollar, heads-up.

Six grinned in the flashlight's beam. "Looks like it's your lucky day, Arcade."


	5. Chapter 5

_From the conservative dark  
_ _Into the ethical life  
_ _The dense commuters come,  
_ _Repeating their morning vow;  
_ _"I will be true to the wife,  
_ _I'll concentrate more on my work,"  
_ _And helpless governors wake  
_ _To resume their compulsory game:  
_ _Who can release them now,  
_ _Who can reach the deaf,  
_ _Who can speak for the dumb?_

 _All I have is a voice  
_ _To undo the folded lie,  
_ _The romantic lie in the brain  
_ _Of the sensual man-in-the-street  
_ _And the lie of Authority  
_ _Whose buildings grope the sky:  
_ _There is no such thing as the State  
_ _And no one exists alone;  
_ _Hunger allows no choice  
_ _To the citizen or the police;  
_ _We must love one another or die._

* * *

Cass was waiting for them when they returned, and - while she cast Arcade a distrustful look - she had only good news.

In fact, Happy Trails had been panicking about the incoming embargo, so when New Vegas came with an offer to purchase them at nearly full price, they almost couldn't sell fast enough. Since she figured they'd need people to manage the caravans, she'd had them pack up and move as soon as possible, and they were expected to arrive with all their holdings within a week. 

"Where should we put them up?" Cass asked. 

"Well, we could always pull an NCR and run out the Crimson Caravan," Arcade said. "Seize their property, too. Oh, that gives me an idea, actually. What if we do it under suspicion of NCR spies? Then it would also look like we're barking up the wrong tree."

"Uh-huh." Cass turned to Six. "Six, where should we put 'em up?"

"How much space will they need?" Six asked.

"About as much as the Crimson Caravan does. They need grazin' space, water, bunks, and walls."

"McCarran is sitting empty right now aside from Securitrons, right?" Arcade asked, ignoring Cass's ignoring him. "We can give them the embassy, too. They're our people now, so there's no harm in giving them access to the monorail. Oh, that reminds me: we should prepare a welcoming party. Luckily, we have the perfect venue. Three of them, even."

"Sounds like Arcade's got it pretty well figured, Cass," Six said. "I say McCarran rather than running out Crimson Caravan."

"They'll probably close up on their own once the embargo hits, anyway," Cass said. "Though runnin' them out doesn't sound like such a bad idea…"

Arcade noted that she seemed to have some beef with the Crimson Caravan, but considering she seemed likely to sock him in the jaw if he didn't play his cards right, he didn't want to pry.

"Looks like the two of you got closer," she said, nodding towards them. "Somethin' good happen while you were away?"

"You'll never believe this, Cass, it's the darndest thing. There's NCR in talks with the Vipers down at Bonnie Springs!"

"No kiddin'," Cass said, eyebrows raised. "I knew the NCR got its hands dirty, but...what are you plannin' to do? Considering you don't have new bullet holes in your hat, it doesn't seem like we're storming 'em."

"Arcade says the smart move's to spy on the spies," Six said. "Now that we know they're here, we've got the advantage, or somethin'. This sort of politickin' makes my head hurt, so ask him. I'm headed up to take a shower."

He gave them a jaunty smile and a wave as he disappeared into the elevator. Arcade felt like he'd aged ten years in the few days they'd been gone.

Cass turned toward Arcade as soon as Six was gone. "NCR this far east? You're sure?"

"I'm sure," Arcade said. "It's what my scouts tell me, and I trust them. They're investigating as we speak and will be leaving a report for me within the next few days."

"Fuck," she breathed. "It's one problem after a goddamned 'nother."

"Tell me about it." Arcade rubbed his eyes behind his glasses. "At least things went well on your end. It's one less thing to worry about."

"Yeah. Happy Trails told me they can get some decent rations in from Zion - dried stuff, mostly - pretty quick, but it ain't gonna be enough without those farms."

She turned toward him with sharp eyes, folding her arms. "Okay, smart guy. Tell me what to do next. If I'm left alone to spin my wheels, I'll go through the whole Strip's worth of whiskey."

"Is the dud caravan we're sending out to get ambushed ready?"

"Has been for a while. I got back pretty early."

"Excellent. In that case, can I leave party planning to you?" He looked her up and down. "I get the feeling your idea of fun is much closer to the average waster's than mine."

She wrinkled her nose. "Is that an insult or a compliment?"

"A compliment. Backhanded, though."

He gave her a weak smile and, to his relief, she returned it. Okay. Okay. Maybe this "acting genuine" thing might work.

"Well, lookatchu, radroach, showing me some teeth," she said. "Don't get too comfy with it, or I'll knock 'em clean outta your jaw, but I think I'll let this one slide."

"Which I appreciate immensely," Arcade said, unable to mask the nervousness in his voice. "I'll get you a budget and leave the preparations to you. We want to make Happy Trails feel welcomed, and broadcast to the rest of New Vegas that they're part of the initiative to soothe the food crisis, so please put some of the budget toward a food handout in Freeside. Keep the Happy Trails party private and inside the Strip - if it's too public, it'll likely stir up dissent instead of goodwill."

"Yeah, I'd be pissed if I was starvin' and I saw a buncha outsiders partying it up, too," Cass agreed. "The Ultra-Luxe does private parties, though they're creepy as hell. We'll host 'em there. What's the evil point of this party?"

"Just to make them feel welcomed," Arcade shrugged. "Show off how much money and power their new owners have, treat them to a glimpse of the good life, assure them that they have the Strip's protection now that they are our _official_ mercantile branch, and so on. I'll probably have to get Six to give a speech."

Cass barked out a laugh. "We're really going the whole nine politician yards, huh? Private parties an' speeches from presidents."

"We'll be working them to the bone soon enough, so it's only fair, right?"

"Yeah, ain't got no problem with this." She leaned in. "You said somethin' about runnin' out the Crimson Caravan. What was that about?"

He smiled. "Well, they're not going to be happy when they find out we're replacing them. Considering their power rivals that of several NCR senators combined, I wouldn't be surprised if they already got the news. I suspect they'll try to negotiate with us, and when that fails, they'll try to retaliate - sabotaging Happy Trails, holding food hostage until we give them agreeable terms. You know, your average, everyday shady corporate stratagems."

"Sounds about right."

"In other words," Arcade said, smiling, "they'll be giving us an excuse. Did you know that New Vegas is an autocracy, and as such, Six's word is law?"

"I _did_ know that," Cass said, nodding as she caught his drift.

"The Crimson Caravan is accustomed to throwing their economic weight around and getting their way," Arcade said. "I've no doubt it worked well for them in the capitalistic NCR. However, we aren't a corrupt oligarchy, we're a totalitarian dictatorship, and we have _no_ obligation to respect even their basic personhood. I mean, we _will,_ because we aren't monsters. But there's literally nothing preventing us from storming their camp and taking everything they own - just that it will look better if we have an excuse in hand first."

He shrugged. "And then we give all the food away for free, buying even more goodwill from our people. We'll make Crimson Caravan quite upset, but what can they reasonably do that the NCR isn't already trying to?"

At that, Cass gave him an evil grin. "You know, we have a word for you in the caravan business."

"Better or worse than 'radroach'?"

"Two-faced bitchass shifty fuckin' snake."

Arcade mulled it over. "You know what? I accept. At least it's a vertebrate this time. If I keep trying, maybe I'll finally get called something endothermic."

She nodded, clearly having no idea what the hell he was talking about. "So what are you going to be doing while I'm running that?"

That was a good question. He gave it some thought.

"Well...actually, I wanted to go volunteer with the Followers."

She looked surprised. "What, really?"

He couldn't blame her. But if there was anything this jaunt around the Mojave with Six had taught him, it was that he'd underestimated just how valuable of a resource goodwill could be. Enclave help was great and all, but the _real_ reason New Vegas stood a chance was because the man at the center of it all had managed to earn everyone's trust. That being the case, Arcade had to make his move, too.

"Yes, really. I _am_ a doctor." He offered her a wry smile. "The Followers are who you were going to ask to handle food distribution, right?"

"Yeah. They're the ones who've been handling it up until now; why mess with a good thing?"

"Then I'll go do my best to lighten their workload. After all, we're going to be working _them_ to the bone as well."

Cass gave him a long, hard look, before finally offering him a small grin. "You feel more human than you did before," she said. "It's a good change, so keep it up, whatever it is you're doing."

She patted him on the shoulder as she passed by, making for the door. Between her and Six, it seemed no one in the wasteland knew how to modulate their strength, so he was left rubbing his arm as he watched her leave. "I'm going out to get a drink while you handle that budget shit." She stopped and looked back. "Oh, before I go, word of warning. Emily ain't gonna be happy to see you down at the Fort."

"I didn't think she would be," Arcade said. "I don't think she'll be happy whatever I do, though."

Cass gave him a wave. "That's your problem. If you need me, I'll be down at the Atomic Wrangler."

* * *

"If you really are a vault-certified doctor, then frankly, I want you to start right away in the OR," Julie said, rummaging around one of the storerooms for a labcoat for him to wear. "Are you alright with being an assistant until you've proven your skills, though?"

She gave him a sort of worried look. When he'd asked to volunteer, he was expecting more resistance. As a testament to how understaffed the Followers were, Julie had instead hired him on the spot.

"Of course," Arcade answered her. "It's only reasonable that I'd need to prove my abilities before I'm allowed to directly handle human lives."

Relief came over her features. "Glad to hear it. Most surgeons I've worked with tend to be a bit full of themselves. Don't tell them I said that."

From one of the bins, she pulled out a dusty coat that used to be pristine white at some point in the distant past. Into the shoulder was sewn in the Followers' cross. She held it up next to him and frowned.

"It's a bit small," she muttered, putting it back. "I'm worried we don't have your size."

"It's a problem I'm used to. Don't mind it if you can't find anything right away."

"Yes - oh! This'll probably work." 

Saying so, she pulled out a men's XL, shaking off the dust. She held it up next to him, seemed satisfied with the fit, and handed it over, smiling. "There you go. Seeing as you're not officially a member yet, I'd like to ask that you only wear this while you're working - it helps set the patients at ease to see the uniform."

Arcade raised an eyebrow. "'Yet?'"

Julie grinned. "Well, call it optimism."

Julie Farkas, Arcade decided, was simply a good person. He supposed that was true of anyone who was working the fort, surrounded by the misery of the human condition, doing their best to help, what little help they could provide.

"Things have been getting rougher around here these past few days," she said, helping him try on the coat, briskly patting away the dust. "People are going hungry. There's water, but not food. Violence is more and more common, but only because people are desperate. It's a terrible sight."

"How are the Westside farms doing?"

"They're helping, especially now that they have Six's blessing, but they can't keep up with the demand. As much as we've been trying to expand them...it takes time. You can feel the tension in the air. And also, unfortunately, in the increase of bullet and stab wounds we've been needing to treat."

"I see."

She bit her lip. "We're running low on anesthetics," she said. "You're...probably going to have to strap people down to the table."

She sounded worried that that would chase him off. He gave her a wry smile. "That's alright. I'm used to less-than-perfect conditions."

"I guess a vault's supply is finite, too," Julie mumbled. "What else do you need to know...oh, meals will be provided, as long as you're on the clock an hour before and an hour after. There's a sign-in sheet in the front tent, but that's more of a formality than anything. It's an honor system. And I'm not saying you _will_ slack off, but people will notice if you do. As much as we'd like to provide food for free to everyone...food crisis."

"I assure you, we're doing the utmost to solve it from our end."

"Glad to hear it. Restrooms are over in that tower. If you have free time between operations, let the doctor stationed at the entrance know you're free, and they'll be able to help you find something to do - there's always _something._ You should ask them first if there's anything you need, but if I'm walking the tents instead of doing managerial shi- crap, in my office, then you can also ask me directly."

She hummed. "I think that's it. Thanks so much for volunteering here. I can't promise it'll be good work, or even rewarding work, but I believe that it's important work nonetheless."

"Fine by me," Arcade said. "It's refreshing to work someplace where one can simply…work. Back home, it's all a mess of red tape. We have to requisition permits and file for lost supplies if someone wants to so much as blow their nose."

Julie grinned. "Well, that's government for you. Hence why we're always on its wrong side."

Trouble spotted them in the midst of the short trek between the storeroom and the OR. Emily, with her blazing red hair, stormed up to them with murder in her eyes.

"And what, exactly, are you doing here?" she asked, folding her arms. "Julie, what is this guy _doing_ here?"

"Volunteering," Julie said. "I know you don't like him, Emily, but we need all the hands we can get."

Cass wasn't kidding when she said Emily would be upset. Normally, he'd try to kowtow and appeal to her better nature, but...he was trying to act more natural. More himself. That being the case, his position was currently unassailable since he had Julie backing him up, and he was confident that he was genuinely here to help, so he gave her a winning smile.

If looks could kill…

"We will talk about this later," she hissed at him, then stormed away. Julie immediately turned apologetic eyes in his direction.

"I'm sorry about her. I have no idea why she's taken so poorly toward you; she's usually not like that."

Oh, now he felt bad that he had to lie to this woman. "No, it's perfectly alright. I think her dislike of me is rather reasonable, actually. Unfortunately, I'm not at liberty to say anything more."

Julie gave him a long, careful study, then turned away. "Alright," she said, sounding unsure. "Well...just tell me if there's anything you need. As long as you're here to help, the Followers welcome you."

* * *

These were, by far, the most ghastly surgeries Arcade had ever been part of. To be honest, he was glad for the fact that he had to start off as an assistant - acclimatizing to the terrible conditions would have been much harder if he'd been thrust headfirst into the surgeon role.

The wounds they treated were terrible, sometimes already festering, often lost causes, but the Followers were obligated to _try._ Flesh was long necrotized, organs overtaxed and covered with cysts and tumors, and in the wasteland, amputations were practically a death sentence; it was common knowledge among doctors that such survivors often didn't last very long post-discharge.

It really was horrifying. No funerals, often not even next-of-kin. He'd been assistant to horrifying surgeries before, of course, but those people were surrounded by friends and family, given proper mourning. No such luxury, here. His first day on the job, during a break between surgeries, he found himself slumped on the ground just outside the tower with no memory of how he got there.

"Hey," said a female voice, and he looked up, startled. A Followers woman with dreadlocks was bent down at the waist, studying him with concerned eyes. He recognized her as one of the surgeons. "First day? I haven't seen you around."

"Ah...yes. I'm volunteering part-time."

She gave him a sympathetic smile. "Well, I know it's cold comfort, but it gets easier. I'm Abrielle. I come from Vault City, so I know how you feel."

She held out a hand and he took it, rising unsteadily to his feet. "Arcade Gannon. I also come from...a vault in the area."

"Yeah, I can tell. People who come from vaults are kind of - particular, you know?"

She gave him a good-natured smile and handed him a water bottle. "You're doing a great job, so don't get too freaked out. And let us know if you need more breaks. The last thing we want to do is potentially scare away a new surgeon. God knows we can't afford to lose any more talent than we have been."

He gladly took the offered water and drained it, wiping his mouth on the back of his sleeve (and immediately regretting how much dust he now had on his face). "Losing talent?"

"Yeah, to the NCR mostly. I guess you might not have heard about it if you came from the east, but back home, the NCR has this program - the OSI - couldn't tell you what it stands for - that's basically just the Followers, but government stooges. And by that I mean stooges for the brahmin barons and the big caravans. They've been leeching Followers knowledge and talent, promising things like prestige and money and government positions that we can't exactly offer our members. On account of the anarchy."

"Mhm."

She pulled a face, looking down at the ground. "Most of my colleagues from Vault City signed on with the OSI. Traitors. They know their research is just going to go towards making the rich even richer, but they don't care. As long as they're in bed with the rich, I guess."

She suddenly remembered herself, looking up in alarm. "Oh, uh, sorry. I really shouldn't be telling you about them if I want to make sure you keep working with us, huh?"

Arcade chuckled. "No, I appreciate the honesty. I understand how you feel. It's frustrating when people you care about elect to support institutions of pure evil of their own volition."

Abrielle laughed. "You already sound like a Follower," she said, elbowing him gently. "You're good at what you do, I can tell. I'm sure you'll be a full-fledged surgeon soon...although I guess that's not really something to be excited about. Take as much time as you need and head back to the OR when you're ready, okay? The upshot to these conditions, if there is one, is that the room isn't sterile anyways, so assistants coming and going can't make things any _worse."_

He liked the Followers. He liked them a lot. What could he do to help? Was he limited to calming his jittery nerves post-operation? There had to be something more he could offer them. Out of everyone he'd seen in the wasteland so far, he most wanted the Followers to survive. And, like the Enclave, they likely wouldn't be able to do so without New Vegas, and New Vegas wouldn't survive without them.

"Alright," he said, putting on a smile, once more aware of the heavy weight on his shoulders. Each and every one of these people - from the doctors he worked with to the patients on his table - were counting on him. "Thank you, Abrielle. I mean it."

* * *

For what it was worth, it _did_ get easier. Julie had expected he'd need a week's probation, but with Abrielle and the other surgeons' recommendation, he was promoted after just a few days (much to Emily's chagrin). Still, the first time he lost someone on the operating table, he'd needed to excuse himself to take a walk and pontificate on the fragility and the futility of the human experience. And then he went back and lost several more, because conditions here were so bad that, even doing as much as he could, even with all his Enclave training, they lost more than they could save. Even that was something he'd grown accustomed to. He wasn't particularly happy with how he did it, slipping into that liminal mindspace where his patients were just procedures, and efficiency was matter-of-fact. He'd come out of some surgeries feeling nothing but numb - and that, more than the gruesomeness of the operations, started prompting his walks, instead.

Six told him one day that he seemed - felt, in a metaphysical sense - more solid. Indeed, he also thought himself more solid than before. Leaden would be a good word for it. He wasn't just limited to surgeries - he did checkups, diagnostics, talked poor, shaking people through withdrawal (and watched them relapse). The weight of it, the pressure of it, seemed to be turning his blood into heavy metal.

Six had told him to kill someone, and he understood that what Six meant by that was to learn the weight of human life, to hold it in his own two hands. This - the things he'd witnessed after just a few days with the Followers - was probably more than Six had bargained for, honestly. It would be easier to simply shoot someone. He was almost sure of it.

But even so, he persisted, both here - where he worked while the sun was high - and in the Lucky 38, where he burned both ends of the candle looking over the budget, assigning tasks and allocating funds. At least no one could say he was slacking. 

Volunteering with the Followers was also meant to give him more insight into gossip and rumors on the ground. It was from this vantage point that he heard news of his plans coming together. News of pieces falling into place was what galvanized him during these stressful days; it was evidence, stark and naked, that his efforts were paying dividends.

The day after he signed on, they got the news that the caravan "accident" had gone off exactly how it was meant to, confirmed by a grinning Six when Arcade finished his Followers shift. As part of New Vegas's foray into the caravan business, they both purchased Happy Trails and deployed a caravan of their own. The latter had been left a flaming wreckage from a raider attack, the raiders having absconded with the entirety of the caravan's cargo. According to Six, the Khans were more than happy to get _paid_ to help ruin the NCR's day, and were glad to deliver the guns to the raiders along the I-80. They'd be leaving within a couple days, and the I-80 raiders would be armed within a week.

However, not everything went so smoothly. Happy Trails got hit up by the Brotherhood on their way into the Mojave. Much of their logistical equipment was confiscated - radios and the like - but, thankfully, they had the good sense to give the Brotherhood what the Brotherhood wanted, and were otherwise allowed to pass with their caravan largely unharmed. Technology could be replaced - New Vegas had the means - but it was frustrating nonetheless, and a cost Arcade had been hoping they wouldn't need to pay. Without taking action against the Brotherhood, however, it was simply a hazard for any caravan down in that direction. Arcade brought up the idea of getting rid of them, but Six seemed troubled when the topic came up, so ultimately, Arcade had let it slide.

Speaking of Brotherhood, apparently they had word from Veronica via radio. She, with the help of Securitrons as hired muscle, had been assembling a small fleet of fixed-up boats down on the riverside near Boulder City, awaiting pickup under cover of darkness.

The leader of the Vikings was a Khan woman named Melissa and a couple of ex-Powder Gangers, who had been the only personnel Papa Khan had been able to spare, as the rest of the Khans had packed up and moved north within the week. Arcade heard from some of his patients that they had been advertising jobs, promising weapons, revenge against the Legion for those who were interested in that sort of thing, and money. He felt nervous leaving the Viking plan to someone he'd never met, so he'd penned a small pamphlet of all relevant passages of Sun Tzu's _The Art of War_ transcribed as best as he could remember them, and asked Six to make sure the Vikings received it. 

Six had grinned at him and said okay, then reached up to ruffle his hair.

"They'll be fine," he said, confidently reassuring him like he was a child.

After that, he could really only hope and pray. They probably wouldn't be hearing from the Vikings for a while, as Melissa needed to assemble a team and learn how to use the boats, scout for places to store it, etc. Worrying about all the ways things could go wrong was an easy way to pass the time between surgeries, however, so there was the silver lining.

In general, circumstances were trending upward. The Strip's affairs, more and more, started to look like proper governance. Intelligence was pouring in from the scouts, trade reports came in from the caravans, and several job postings he'd had Six create got filled, interviews happening one after another.

Of these jobs, one of the most prominent was an in-house courier network. The Mojave Express was based out of the NCR, and the Inner Circle generally agreed that they wanted to rely on the NCR as little as possible, so they started their own service to relay information between New Vegas's settlements and the Strip. In addition, Westside's farming efforts were now officially being sponsored by the Strip, alongside an effort to fix up the old sharecropper farms, and between those and the frequent handouts they'd been conducting to celebrate every major advancement, tensions in Freeside began to ebb away. This reduction was reflected in the diminishing number of patients Arcade saw on the operating table. There was still a long way to go before the locals and the refugees were on speaking terms, but for the time being, at least, there was an uneasy ceasefire.

Deals were struck with the Gun Runners not just for firearms, but for specialty parts in general, taking advantage of their operational factory. The Boomers agreed to Six's terms and the first catalogues were sent their way. The Strip needed a bit more time to organize the projects Boomer personnel would be overseeing, but they had those experts ready on standby for when the time came. Hired guns were sent to Sloan and Novac to help handle raiders and Legion, respectively.

That wasn't to say that _all_ things were coming up New Vegas. They had managed to establish a northern trade route to Jacobstown, but so long as the Vipers were still holed up at Bonnie Springs, and the Fiends in Vault 3, that meant trade from Jacobstown down to southern settlements (and vice versa) had to take the long way around through the Strip. Devin and Annie, who were now keeping extra careful watch on the area, confirmed that firearms had started moving into New Vegas from the NCR side. They saw boxes moving in the dead of night and news of Viper attacks growing more organized and deadly. As such, Six was advised to stay within the Strip's walls whenever possible, something he seemed extremely unhappy with.

"It's only for a few months," Arcade explained. "Just until we're established and competent enough to purge them all at once."

"Yeah, but all I've been doin' lately is puttin' my signature on shit n' conductin' interviews. Not even in person! I want to do more to help out."

Arcade wanted to tell him that that was already plenty. Still, if Six was volunteering for more work…

"Then throw some parties and some temper tantrums," he said. Six blinked at him. 

"Huh?"

"Go out in public - within Strip walls, I mean - and overturn some tables, ruin some NCR holidays. Throw some weight and money around. If you _really_ want to be useful right now, you'll go out and be a public nuisance - rant about how annoying the NCR are, make a scene. Complain about the embargo incoming, and boast that we don't even need them."

"What the hell - why?"

"The same reason we 'lost' a caravan to the Khans, the same reason we haven't noticed NCR spies helping out the Vipers, the same reason we're claiming no affiliation with the Vikings. Every good thing we manage, we manage by sheer luck; New Vegas's dictator is otherwise petty, immature, and incompetent."

"That's mean, Arcade."

Arcade snorted. "Well, if President Kimball was constantly shaking his impotent little fists at you, considering his current re-election chances, would you take him seriously?"

"A little. I mean, he's still president, right?"

"And you're an autocrat. Technically, you wield _much_ more power than he does."

Six stroked his stubble. "Cause a public ruckus, huh…"

"Yep. Get into some bar fights, then throw a big bag of caps on the counter to pay for it all. Hire some goons to do the same thing in your name out in Freeside. Or Cass. Stuff like that."

"Yeah...I can do that. But won't that hurt the budget?"

Well, to be honest, right now they were hemorrhaging money. Their fiscal free-fall, however, was something Arcade had expected to initiate as soon as he saw how much money they had to work with, and very few of their purchases were frivolous. After this initial round of investments, they ought to stabilize somewhat, considering the sheer profit the Strip raked in even with talks of trade embargoes and a cold war with the NCR. Besides, the more money they pumped into their economy, the more money people had to spend on Strip casinos. Money had infinite value so long as it was circulating.

One day, they'd have to talk to the settlements about taxes. Things like public works, military patrols, courier services, etc. did not come free or cheaply, and to those settlements benefitting, it would be easier for them to pay a lump sum and use those services for free than to have to pay individual commissions each time. For now, New Vegas was providing the services at a loss, but Arcade was already sending out letters to settlement leaders with details of how much each service cost in order to prepare them for the day in which they were asked to help contribute.

This sort of talk made Six's head hurt and drew Cass's suspicion.

"Taxes...I can't say I like that word."

"That's because the NCR is your frame of reference, and the NCR is hopelessly corrupt," Arcade said. "Even ignoring the usual shady deductions the wealthy use to evade paying their share, their income tax system isn't even properly graduated. They currently charge a flat percentage across all heads, right?"

"Yeah, somethin' like that. And a shitton of beaurocracy besides. I feel like I never knew what taxes my caravan'd get hit with 'til I saw the bill."

"And you never knew what your tax money was going towards, either, I'll wager."

She raised an eyebrow. "How'd you know?"

"Call it a hunch," Arcade shrugged. "Politicians can get away with lining their pockets much easier when their taxpayers aren't privy to the intricacies of the budget. We'll make ours a matter of public record. It is, technically, tipping our hand to do so, but I have a feeling that it's the kind of New Vegas Six would want."

He leaned in, serious. "Taxes, as they are intended to work on paper, are payments made by individuals to purchase services for the collective. Utilized correctly, almost all that money goes back to the people who paid it, via roads and education, food security and healthcare, legal representation and military protection. In a perfect world, the people of New Vegas would be able to vote on where to allocate these funds and be well-educated enough to understand where best the money is to be used, but this world is not perfect, and we are in the midst of at least two major crises, three if you count the Enclave's main force. Since we have the efficiency of a dictatorship on our hands, we should use it...democracy can come later, when we _aren't_ liable to implode if poked at from the wrong direction."

Cass nodded. "That all makes good enough sense, an' I think most folks'll be willing to contribute what they can when they see how hard we're workin' for them, but maybe you should call it anything else besides 'taxes.'"

Arcade laughed. "Maybe."

* * *

Emily nearly gave Arcade a heart attack one morning by manifesting around a corner as he left his room. As usual, she was giving him a mean look from behind her cat-eye glasses, arms crossed in front of her chest.

"Oh, uh, hello," he said, awkwardly. He weighed in his mind whether it'd be better to try and slip by her, but politeness won out. "What's up?"

"...Fine," she said, dropping her gaze. "You win."

"Excuse me?"

"I was...too hasty...judging you," she grumbled. "You've been a huge help to the Followers...and to New Vegas...and I'm sorry."

He blinked. Then he smiled. "Well, thanks. I appreciate it." It was nice to hear that sort of recognition, but it was clearly reluctantly given, so he hoped that would be the end of it. He was about to walk past her, but she stopped him, stepping in his way. He raised an eyebrow. "Yes?"

Her expression was extremely dour. "I wanted to ask you something," she said.

"I'll answer to the best of my abilities."

"I was talking to Boone. You said most of your base is kids younger than 30. Were you telling the truth?"

"Yes," Arcade answered. He leaned against the wall, figuring his would be a relatively long conversation. "The main force dragged all the other children in my generation east. Both my parents were left behind at Navarro, so they insisted I stay with them. Navarro fell when I was five. During the sojourn to the Mojave, in no small part thanks to background radiation, no children were had until we had functioning artificial wombs. That was twenty-five years ago."

Emily bit her lip. "And you haven't been kidnapping surface-dwellers? Doing experiments on them?"

"For the first decade or so of us living here, we didn't have the luxury even if we wanted to. The base we're holed up in wasn't intended for long-term habitation, so there were endless renovations to be done. After that, we had our hands full keeping our own human beings in line. Those first few years, perhaps shortsightedly, almost every child gestated was a twin or triplet. By the time we had the leisure to consider covertly kidnapping surface-dwellers instead of keeping toddlers out of the compost pile, the Legion and NCR had arrived, House had awakened, and any such kidnapping we did would have aroused suspicion - suspicion we _still_ can't afford."

Emily furrowed her brow. "So you couldn't even if you wanted to. But did you _want_ to?"

Arcade let out a long breath through his nose, unhappy with his answer. "A few of the old-timers, maybe. But the kids care far more about what safety film they'll get to watch during their off hours than poking around some waster's guts."

"So why'd you sign up to do just that, then?"

Arcade shrugged. "I asked Julie what position she needed filled, she said 'surgeon.' It was her idea, not mine." He gave her a wry smile. "I'm not planting microchips inside my patients. Were you hoping I was?"

"Kinda. It'd make you easier to hate. And I wouldn't owe Cass twenty caps."

Arcade chuckled. "Can I tell you something embarrassing?"

That put her on guard more than anything, but she gave a stiff nod. "Sure."

"Did you know that vault dwellers, tribals, and Enclave personnel are not genetically dissimilar?"

At that, she gave a small, sharp laugh. "Yeah. Obviously."

"Obviously, indeed." He inclined his head toward her. "I only learned it recently. So I'm sorry, too, that I was mistaken for as long as I was. Human beings are pretty fallible creatures, aren't they?"

She studied him for a long time, then let out a long, pent-up sigh, also sagging her weight against the wall. She was much smaller than he was, and, perhaps as a sign of how poorly-suited for combat she was, very delicate in frame. Definitely someone more suited to sit behind a desk than behind a rifle - she was a specialist in computers, right?

"It's weird that we can have a normal conversation like this," Emily admitted. "My family told me stories about some of the experiments the Enclave would do. Live dissections, mostly, and taking tissue samples while subjects were still conscious. Throwing them in sealed rooms and pumping 'em full of FEV."

That was actually in line with the reports he'd read, mostly Schreber's. Though, like a lot of things, it only really struck him now that someone else was bringing them up how horrific those experiments were. Especially now that he was so intimately, uncomfortably familiar with waster surgery. He couldn't imagine how monstrous someone would have to be to subject themselves to all that involuntary shrieking and crying, or the sympathetic apprehension of watching someone go into shock, just to lie and say the poor bastards going through that much suffering weren't human. Schreber must have known...Schreber must have known that they _were_ human, since it was his reports that solidified the lie. That made it all worse. 

"I can't deny that those procedures did happen."

"Why?" Emily asked. "What did we ever do to you?"

Her sharp eyes searched his, and he looked away. "I'm sorry. I don't have an answer for that."

She laughed, although it was bitter. "My mom used to wake up screaming and crying. I'd have to console her and remind her that we were safe back in Arroyo. Home. Every year we mourned my grandma and grandpa, two people I never met because they didn't make it out of those labs alive. There's a reason the NCR wants you all dead, and while the Followers don't see eye-to-eye with them on much, most members wouldn't stick their necks out for you just because you didn't _personally_ do anything wrong."

"Yeah," Arcade said, unhappily. "I know. I don't think any explanation could be adequate - and you're free to hate me all you want. After all, I'm not abandoning the Enclave, nor do I want to. They're my family. But I can personally promise you that I'm making every possible effort to do right by New Vegas."

Emily sighed again, her head thunking against the wall. "This sucks," she groused. "Why couldn't you be every evil thing my family said you were going to be?"

"It's not too late for me to call you nasty things, if that would make this easier for you."

Emily laughed, looking up at him with a genuine smile for the first time since they'd met. He smiled back. 

"No, I think I'm fine, thanks." She gave him an appraising look, up and down. "Tall, handsome, smart, and funny. The whole package, huh? You want to grab a drink with me sometime?"

Arcade suddenly felt very nervous. "Erm, I'm very flattered you think so, and I'd like to get to know you better, but perhaps not so...intimately."

Her expression changed, now a careful look in her eyes. "What? Not interested in muties?"

He coughed. "In, uh. In women."

It was her turn to blanch. "Uh. Right. Sorry."

It was so awkward and quiet between them for so long that Arcade felt like he might put down roots. It was Emily who broke the silence, now blushing a furious red to match the color of her hair.

"I guess I owe Veronica twenty caps now, too."

The clear implication there was that she'd been attracted to him even while she was actively hostile, even while suspecting him of monstrous intentions. If that was the case, then Veronica was entirely right when she said Emily had poor taste in men.

Emily gave a haughty toss of her hair, pushing herself off the wall.

"Well, if you're not awkward about it, I won't be either," she said. "I did have a favor to ask. Those scouts of yours, I want to meet them. At least one. And seeing as I'm important to the Strip and weak in a fight, I want them to come to us."

"Did you?" Arcade asked, surprised. She'd been vehemently against his scouts when Six had first announced they'd be working with them. "What changed your mind?"

"They're good," she said, seeming annoyed by having to admit to it. "And they're _kids,_ according to you and Six. I need to see it with my own two eyes to believe it. Look, you've earned my trust - just barely - but not your scouts."

Arcade nodded. "Sure thing. I can call one over tonight, but who knows when they'll arrive. If you could keep your schedule clear tomorrow and the day after, one of them will turn up sometime then."

"Sounds good," Emily said. She still seemed reluctant to play nice with him, but much less reluctant than before. "Keep up the good work, radroach."

* * *

Raul and Lily arrived back at the Lucky 38 the next morning. Lily stayed for breakfast - rather, she insisted she cook them all breakfast - and then went happily back to Jacobstown, only after giving her "sweeties" very careful, gentle hugs. Raul, meanwhile, responded to Six's welcome with a loud groan, settling himself in on a seat at the bar and ordering a stiff drink for his aching body.

Arcade tried to ask him how it went, but he just held up a bony finger.

"I am _officially_ on vacation now," he said. "Check back in a month."

And that was the end of that. With him now accounted for, the only Inner Circle member left out in the field was Veronica. Six assured him that she'd be home soon.

At noontime, a scout arrived. Arcade had been expecting Annie, since she was stationed the closest to the Strip, but to his surprise, it was Devin who'd asked a Securitron for his "uncle." Arcade found him waiting at the gate.

"You're pretty far from your post," Arcade said, leading him inside.

"Brotherhood got tipped off to NCR activity in my area, so I'm laying low for a while anyway," Devin said, lightly, giving Arcade a conspiratory grin. "Wonder who gave BoS the tip?"

"You didn't."

Devin shrugged. "Can't prove nothin'."

"Devin," Arcade said, half-chastising and half-proud. "Be...be careful. Alright?"

"I'm the epitome of caution," Devin replied. "So what did you need me for?"

Arcade requested the VIP lounge at the Tops - granted to him by Six's good graces - and Devin was ushered inside. Arcade then grabbed Emily from the Fort, where she'd been tapping away on a terminal as she waited for Arcade's arrival.

She brought Cass and Boone along with her, insisting she wanted to make sure they outnumbered the roaches, and the four of them made their way to the VIP lounge, where Devin had been amusing himself folding paper cranes out of the ratty cloth napkins on the table.

"Oh, hey," he said, looking up as the rest of the party arrived. "I'm Devi…" he paused as he looked the wasters over, then cleared his throat and continued. "I'm Devin Osorno, moonlighting as Arcade's nephew. It's good to meet you! Thanks for taking care of the big oaf."

What was that about? Arcade raised an eyebrow, but said nothing more, seating himself at the table. As introductions were made and hands were shaken, one-by-one the rest of them took their seats as well. Emily's expression was smooth, though obviously faked, as a waiter came by to take their orders and Arcade covered for Devin's share.

Over the railing, they could see the show, some singer who used to perform at New Reno accompanied by the recording of an old backing track, tinny with age. There was space on the stage for a live band to play, but there was no band - so few instruments had survived the war. These casinos always made Arcade uncomfortable. They were uncanny and _wrong_ , all the sets he remembered from his safety films, but grimy and tattered and worn. It was sometimes easy to forget, living in the comfort of his little excavated shelter, but they really were living in a world after the end, weren't they.

In any case, the Inner Circle interrogated Devin left and right. How old was he? How did he go about his job? How did the Enclave live back home? What were they here for? What was _he_ here for? Looking a little overwhelmed, he did his best to answer. He was Devin, he was 24, he mostly hung around border towns with the cover story that he was trying to save up enough money to get into the Strip and find his fortune on the slot machines there. He was a harmless brat from the NCR, New Reno specifically, since crime still ran so rampant there that unclaimed children were a common sight. His mother was a prostitute, his father was unknown, and he may or may not have been dodging the NCR draft. Cass admitted it was a smart cover, to which Devin laughed and said he'd tell Maggie back home she said so.

What did the Enclave want? Well, he parroted Arcade's words: they wanted someplace to stay where the ruling body didn't want them dead. They wanted to be free. What did _he_ want? Well, _he_ wanted to travel. To see more than just a dusty slice of the Mojave. To go up north where the nuclear winter was and experience snow with his own two hands. To go west to the ocean and see if it really was salty, to see if it really did stretch all the way to the horizon. To pay his respects to Navarro.

They were pretty impossible dreams, and Arcade himself was surprised to hear it. Devin had never expressed such an interest in travel before.

"Yeah, well, I did some thinking after talking to Six," Devin said, bashfulness creeping into his voice. "I think it's really cool, all the things he's seen...I know going west is probably impossible, but it should be alright to go north someday, right? I don't want to be cooped up here forever."

But it was dangerous so far from home, Arcade almost said, and then thought better of it. Six's words rattled around in his head, too. Living as if he was afraid every day of every possible catastrophe was exhausting. 

"...I think that sounds like an excellent idea," he said, trying to give Devin a smile. He felt like it was hollow and faltering, but Devin smiled back. "You'd better work hard to make that a reality."

"Ever the stuffy realist," Devin laughed.

"And write home often. And don't stay up so late that you're stumbling around with your pants backwards and inside-out the next day."

Devin laughed again. "I don't want to hear that coming from _you."_

"Hypocrisy is a grand American tradition," Arcade said, pointedly. "Do as I say, not as I do."

Cass cocked her head at the two of them, then gave a mysterious little grin and started eating, as if bowing out of the questioning. Emily, however, persisted.

"So what's your grand plan from now on?" she asked. "You've got a guy in the inner circle, and you've convinced us to believe your little scouts. We know what the next step for New Vegas is - but what's the next step for the Enclave?"

At that, Devin looked to Arcade, unsure of how much to divulge. Arcade nodded as the torch was passed to him. The answer was honesty. It was all of it.

"A schism has formed in the ranks back home," Arcade said. "We've been actively recruiting people to our side, with one of the high-ranking old-timers helping to cover up this activity and prevent the old loyalists from catching on." 

Moreno was a spectacular soldier and combatant, but he was no politician. While Arcade suspected that Moreno was aware that something was amiss, there wasn't much he could do - every unwarranted, extreme punishment turned sentiment further against him. Every stripped freedom, in order to more resemble the Enclave's original policies, brought more dissidents to their side. This generation had not been raised to believe in blind faith to the flag, had not been beaten and starved into submission since birth to believe in an immutable "correct." They had _known_ freedom most of their lives and were now finding it ripped away. Delilah's grand scheme, of which Arcade was a co-conspirator, had worked.

"And then what?" Emily asked.

"And then we need a catalyst," Arcade said. "We need to stoke tensions, fuel resentments, until the whole of the base is seething with fear and anger. And then, while temperatures are running high, something needs to happen that boils over the pot."

His hands, folded on the table, squeezed each other. There was no other way around it - there was no way to save everyone. 

"'And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death.'"

Devin next to him went still and quiet, as did the Inner Circle, Emily in particular, who stared at him with that sharp, hostile gaze. 

As things were now, his life was already forfeit if he ever returned within reach of Moreno's gun. There was no way the loyalist scouts hadn't noticed his presence in the Mojave, allied with their dread enemies. And that was the playing field he found himself on: one where "family" was committing auto-cannibalism, where the people who raised him, to whom he owed his life, were now seeking to cash in. If he wanted to survive - if he wanted to save as many children as he could - then he needed the resolve to play ball.

Frustrated, probably feeling helpless and futile regarding the heavy weight of the future, Devin turned away. Out of all these kids, only Annie, toughest of them all, was able to take this knowledge in stride. 

In situations like these, there was only the option of putting on a brave face, a wry smile.

"And then we depose New Vegas's sham government and rule the muties with an iron fist, for the glory of the United States of America, god-bless-us-every-one," Arcade said, hoping the sarcasm was obvious enough. "No, by that point, we'll be licking our wounds. It being easy to take advantage of people in mourning, I imagine we'd be easy to subjugate and convert into a vassal community, like all the others dotting New Vegas's landscape. At that point, our technology, knowledge, archives, and trained personnel will be at your disposal. By then, I just hope we've cultivated a good enough relationship that you'll be willing to give us a place to call home, even in spite of what your neighbors will think."

That was what he wanted. That was the best-case scenario: that they would have enough people left to continue on what good the Enclave had in them, but not so many that they were a threat that needed to be resolved by firing squad. His aim was purely to save what good there was, what Arcade loved in his people; he hoped only that they could survive, even if not unscathed.

How could he do this to the family that had raised him? How could he knowingly and actively pursue a plan where many of them wound up dead, either directly or indirectly via his machinations, his hands? 

A trolley is headed towards a multitude of hapless victims all tied to the tracks, and if he pulls a lever, then only some of them will die. However, his own hands will be irrevocably stained with blood. 

And when the children were in mourning, when they were sobbing and grieving, not realizing until too late exactly what the full cost of his decision would be, when they needed a monster to blame...yes, he'd resolved himself to offer his own neck, another member of a bygone generation, with its bygone set of virtues. If the generation before him valued loyalty and unity, and the one after valued peace and freedom, then necessarily, he must embody cold-blooded ruthlessness and intolerance, using every cowardly trick in the book, in order to depose the former. In the world he dreamed of, such were unforgivable sins. So be it.

He only hoped his kids would be free.

"I see," Emily said, finally dropping her sharp, searching gaze. Only capable of limping along after that, finally the meeting concluded, a dour and sober feeling hanging suspended in the air.


End file.
